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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41184 ***
+
+Whither Thou Goest
+By William Le Queux
+Published by Herbert Jenkins Ltd, 3 York Street, St James's, London.
+This edition dated 1920.
+
+Whither Thou Goest, by William Le Queux.
+
+________________________________________________________________________
+
+________________________________________________________________________
+WHITHER THOU GOEST, BY WILLIAM LE QUEUX.
+
+PREFACE.
+
+WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT.
+
+The Earl of Saxham was vastly annoyed when his son, Guy, fell in love
+with a "penniless nobody," and announced that he would marry her against
+all opposition.  He determined to separate the lovers; to which end he
+persuaded an influential friend in the Foreign Office to secure an
+appointment for Guy in the Embassy at Madrid.  He little knew that he
+was sending his son into the centre of a hotbed of anarchism, that Guy's
+footsteps were to be dogged by a vindictive and revengeful woman, that
+his life was to hold many a thrilling moment and not a few narrow
+escapes.
+
+Mr Le Queux has written a thrilling story of anarchism and its deadly
+secret plotting, a story through which there runs, nevertheless, a rich
+vein of romance.
+
+PROLOGUE.
+
+A hot July evening on the calm Biscayan coast of Spain.
+
+The sun had disappeared like a globe of molten metal into the sapphire
+sea, and now, in the breathless blood-red afterglow which tinged the
+unruffled glassy waters away to the Atlantic, the whole populace of the
+peaceful old-world town of Fonterrabia had come forth from their houses
+to breathe again after the intense heat and burden of the blazing day.
+
+Dusty green sun-shutters were being opened everywhere, while upon the
+golden beach the clear waters hardly rippled, for the summer tide was
+upon the turn.  Across the bay lay a cluster of gaily-painted sardine
+boats in reds and greens, awaiting a breeze, and along the sea-front, so
+fiercely swept in winter, stood the quaint mediaeval houses, crumbling
+and sun-blanched, with their wide overhanging roofs and many balconies,
+palpitating with the heat, now rapidly receding.  It had been a
+scorching day in Spain.
+
+In the stunted tamarisks which sprang, dust-covered and twisted, from
+the yellow, shifting sands the grasshoppers still chirped merrily,
+though it was sunset, and from the sun-blanched sea-front came of a
+sudden the high, tuneful twanging of a mandoline, and a man's tenor
+voice singing that ancient love-song which one hears everywhere in the
+wine lands of the Guipuzcoa.
+
+_Pase cantivo amor entus prisones_.
+
+From the houses came forth the many mixed odours of the evening _cena_,
+the appetising smell of rich _ollas_, mostly flavoured with garlic, be
+it said, while from the shops which sold eatables there emanated that
+faint and peculiar perfume which only those who have lived in hot
+climates can know, and can justly appreciate.
+
+Of a sudden the ancient bells of Santa Gadea, the old incense-laden,
+Gothic church above the town, clanged forth again, as they had done so
+many times a day through centuries, summoning the good people of
+Fonterrabia to kneel before the high dark altar, with those long candles
+and the wonderful brass chandelier above.
+
+Now as the bells jangled forth an observer might, perhaps, have noticed
+two men meet, as though entirely by accident, close to that obscure
+little cafe "The Concha," which faces the sea.
+
+On the pavement before the little place sat several men in their blue
+_berets_, drinking wine and gossiping as all Spaniards must do.
+
+The pair who had met were of quite different stamp.
+
+One, who was about forty, of a refined but rather parvenu type, was
+dressed in a well-cut suit of thin, dark grey material, and wore a straw
+hat much ripened by the sun.  He was idly smoking a long _valenciano_,
+and betrayed surprise, though feigned, at the meeting.  The other was a
+typical fisherman in the blue blouse and blue _beret_, the national
+headdress of all the Basque people.  He still wore his heavy sea-boots,
+in which, however, he walked jauntily, for his age was not more than
+thirty, and his dark, handsome countenance was bright, enthusiastic, and
+well bronzed.
+
+On meeting, the man in the sun-ripened straw hat, and of much superior
+class, turned quickly and walked beside him.
+
+As he did so a tall Jesuit priest, a man with a swarthy, sinister face
+and a long, rather shabby cassock--Father Gonzalo by name--chanced to
+pass.
+
+Carlos Somoza, the fisherman, saluted him reverently, but beneath his
+breath he exclaimed in Spanish:
+
+"May the Holy Madonna curse him for ever!"
+
+"Why?" inquired the man in grey, whose name was Garcia Zorrilta, a
+native of Toledo, who had come in secret from Madrid in order to meet
+his fisherman friend.
+
+"Because he may recognise you.  There may be a hitch."
+
+"Bah!  There will be no hitch.  There cannot be.  You people here in the
+country are so often faint-hearted.  We in the capital are not.  All
+goes well, and success must be ours.  It is but a simple matter of
+waiting--waiting in patience."
+
+"Yes--but Father Gonzalo is a man whom I do not like."
+
+"Why?  He looks really quite harmless.  Who is he?"
+
+"Nobody exactly knows," was the fisherman's reply, as they turned up the
+narrow Calle Mayor, that old-world street of high, handsome houses,
+mostly adorned with the crumbling coats-of-arms of the ancient
+proprietors, and with balconies of wrought iron, and wide, projecting
+roofs across the narrow footway.  "He has been here for about four
+months, yet he is not attached to Santa Gadea.  Sometimes he visits the
+sick, and all speak well of him.  But both Cardona and Cienfuegos agree
+with my suspicions that he is a Government agent, and that he is here to
+find out all he can."
+
+His companion grunted.
+
+"_Dios_!  If that is really so, then we must discover more about him,"
+he said.  "I trust, however, you are wrong, for, as you say, he might
+recognise me again.  And that would certainly be most awkward in my
+position--as Deputy-Governor of the Province of Navarre."
+
+"Yes, Excellency, that is why I cursed him," replied the intelligent
+fisherman, with a smile.  "At our meeting last Thursday, we discussed
+whether Father Gonzalo should not meet with--well, meet with an
+accident."
+
+"No, no!" replied the other quickly, raising his voice because at the
+moment a heavy cart, with its great wood disc wheels, drawn by two white
+bulls and laden with wine barrels, rumbled past them slowly over the
+cobbles.  "Not here--that would never do, never!  It would upset all our
+plans!  We must be cautious--_always cautious_.  Watch him, and report
+to me in the usual way--a letter to the Poste Restante in Madrid.  I
+will at once inquire all about this mysterious Father, and the reason he
+has come to Fonterrabia.  He may, as you suspect, be an agent of the
+Ministry in disguise."
+
+"We are quite certain that he is."
+
+"If so, he must not remain here," declared the stranger decisively.  "It
+would certainly be extremely dangerous for you, and for all your
+friends.  The success of our _coup_ depends upon entire secrecy.  Your
+little circle here have ever been loyal and undaunted.  There must be no
+betrayal, as there was, you recollect, in Barcelona before the war."
+
+"Barcelona is a city, Fonterrabia is only a little town, and hence it
+should escape suspicion," was the educated young fisherman's remark.
+"Ours we know to be a just and honest cause, and we all, as sons of
+Spain, are each of us prepared willingly to sacrifice our lives if
+necessary."
+
+"Well said, Carlos!  Our gallant leader, Ferdinand Contraras, who has
+lately sacrificed most of his great fortune to secure the salvation of
+Spain, is aware of your loyalty," Zorrilta assured him.  "A little time
+ago I was with him at one of our secret sessions at Toledo, and he
+mentioned you, and your friends here--and praised you for your
+patriotism as a true son of Spain."
+
+"But the Englishman!  What of him?" asked Carlos, as, strolling slowly,
+they were approaching the great old church.
+
+"That Englishman?  Oh, yes, I know.  You have serious and perhaps
+foolish apprehensions in that direction," was the reply of the
+Deputy-Governor of Navarre.  "But, Carlos, you can rest assured that we
+shall have no real trouble from that quarter.  He will die--as the
+others have done.  And he will die very soon!"
+
+"_You are quite certain of that_?" asked the fisherman eagerly.
+
+"Quite.  It is all arranged--an accident--a mystery--and nothing more,"
+laughed the man from Madrid.
+
+"The Englishman is our most serious enemy," declared Carlos, as yet only
+half convinced.
+
+"One by one the enemies of our own Spanish people have been swept away.
+He will very soon follow them--rest assured.  _De los enemigos los
+menes_--the fewer enemies the better."
+
+"But he may go back to England.  We discussed it all here at our secret
+meeting last Thursday."
+
+"Well, and suppose he is in England, it does not matter.  The avenging
+hand of our great Contraras--who may _Dios_ protect--will strike him
+there, never fear.  Wherever he is, he cannot escape us.  He will die,
+and his death will be a mystery to the English police--as so many deaths
+have been."
+
+At that moment the pair found themselves passing the great old Gothic
+door of Santa Gadea, which the sacristan had thrown open to the air for
+an hour to clear the atmosphere of incense before closing for the night.
+In the deep, cavernous silence the eternal red lamp showed before the
+figure of the Virgin crowned, while far beyond were the long candles
+burning before the altar, with its many steps.
+
+The sight of those candles impelled the pious and enthusiastic Carlos to
+suggest that they should enter the church, and there pray for the
+success of their plans.
+
+The Deputy-Governor of Navarre in the shabby straw hat smiled, and at
+once agreed.
+
+In all Latin countries the lower class have a habit of kneeling before
+their favourite altar and craving blessings of the most paltry
+character.  In Italy, the _contadini_ ask that the winning numbers of
+the _lotto_ or Government lottery may be revealed to them, or beg that
+their attempt at theft may be successful.  In Spain they implore divine
+grace for a big catch of fish, or a fat harvest, so that they may enrich
+themselves.
+
+Cupidity is, alas, the mainspring of most of the prayers of Southern
+Europe.
+
+Garcia Zorrilta, political adventurer and wire-puller, who by reason of
+his cunning and unscrupulousness had risen from clerk in a flour-mill in
+Toledo to be Deputy-Governor of the Province of Navarre, knew how pious
+was his friend the young fisherman, and, mock piety being part of his
+profession, he was compelled to enter that great dark, over-ornamented
+church, and there kneel with his companion before the altar.
+
+What Zorrilta, one of the lieutenants of the great Contraras, prayed for
+one does not know, but the prayer of Carlos the fisherman was for the
+speedy death of the one man he most greatly feared, the man to whom he
+had referred as "the Englishman."
+
+But as he rose from his knees, he whispered under his breath:
+
+"_Cuando no puede uno vestirse la piel del leon, vestase de la
+vulpeja_--when you cannot clothe yourself in the lion's skin, put on
+that of the fox."
+
+CHAPTER ONE.
+
+The evening shadows were falling softly as the Earl of Saxham stepped
+into one of the small drawing-rooms of that palatial residence,
+Ticehurst Park, in the county of Sussex.
+
+Ticehurst Park was a magnificent domain, deeply mortgaged.  Out of its
+fair revenues, there were two or three heavily-pensioned dowagers who
+had to be provided for, there were a heap of relations who had to draw
+their small annual stipends.
+
+On paper, the Earl of Saxham was a very wealthy nobleman.  When he had
+deducted the interest on mortgages, and the yearly stipends and marriage
+settlements, he was quite poor.  Out of every sovereign he received, he
+retained about ten shillings.
+
+A less even-tempered man would have cursed his bad luck, that he should
+have been saddled with three dowagers, and a host of other cormorants.
+
+Archibald, tenth Earl of Saxham, was a delightful optimist.  He had come
+into the title by a series of fortunate accidents, and he was disposed
+to think that, on the whole, Providence had arranged things very
+agreeably.  Before he took up the mantle of his fathers he had been
+trying to make both ends meet on a small private fortune of seven
+hundred a year, with but indifferent success.  He had now, those irksome
+deductions apart, several thousands a year--in fact, a still very
+considerable income.
+
+He fitted into the position as easily as a glove.  His wife, a woman of
+noble birth like himself, assisted him ably.  They speedily became the
+most popular couple in Sussex, a county which boasts of many noble
+families.
+
+He came into his inheritance at the age of thirty.  Ten years after his
+beautiful and beloved wife died, leaving him with three children, Eric
+Viscount Ticehurst, Guy Rossett, and Mary Rossett.  He was so devoted to
+the memory of his wife that he did not marry again.
+
+Mary Rossett, the youngest of the three, was sitting in the small
+drawing-room when he entered this particular evening.
+
+She was a handsome young woman of about twenty-five years, tall and
+slender.  Her demeanour was a little staid, suggesting a woman some five
+years her senior.
+
+Truth to tell, Mary Rossett had experienced a bitter romance when she
+was at the age of twenty.  Her heart was buried in the grave of a young
+officer of the Guards, who had died suddenly a few days before the date
+of their wedding.
+
+From that fatal day, she had said good-bye to love, in a measure to
+youth.  No other man would ever charm back the lovelight into the eyes
+of Mary Rossett.
+
+But fate, which had stricken her so sorely, did not deprive her of her
+sweet and womanly qualities.  She was the beloved companion of her
+brothers, the idol of her widowed father; and she was adored by all the
+villagers on the estate, to many of whom she was often a ministering
+angel.
+
+The Earl of Saxham, as he entered the small drawing-room, was smiling in
+a peculiar manner.  His daughter recognised that peculiar smile.  Her
+father was very pleased with himself over something.  But she knew what
+that something was.
+
+"So Guy has come," he cried cheerfully.  "Well, Mary, don't you give it
+away when he tells us the good news, or it will spoil it all."
+
+Lady Mary rose, and laid an affectionate hand on his arm.
+
+"No need to caution me, dearest.  You know I never give myself away.
+Keep a guard on yourself.  Don't smile too much, or look at me too
+meaningly when he is telling us, or he'll spot it.  You know, you are a
+little indiscreet at times."
+
+The Earl smiled genially.
+
+"I know, I know, Mary.  There is no fool like an old fool, they say.
+But this is really a great thing.  I wrung it out of old Greatorex.
+And, once in Spain, we shall get him out of the reach of that young
+minx, Isobel Clandon."
+
+Mary's brows contracted into a slight frown: Love had left her stranded,
+but she was still very sympathetic to young lovers.
+
+"Why are you so hard on poor Isobel, father?" she asked in her clear,
+kind voice.  "I know she is poor, but she is a lady and well-born."
+
+Her voice faltered a little, as she added, "Hugh was poor, when you gave
+your consent that I should marry him.  Why do you make this distinction
+with Guy?"
+
+The Earl looked a little embarrassed.
+
+"My dear Mary, you are a sensible girl, and you must see that the
+circumstances are totally dissimilar.  Hugh was the younger son of a
+house as noble as our own.  True he was poor, but I could have helped
+you."
+
+"And if you were ready to help me, you can help Guy and Isobel," flashed
+Lady Mary quickly.
+
+The Earl spoke a little irritably.
+
+"It is very strange you can't see it.  Isobel Clandon is, I admit, quite
+a lady in the technical sense of the term.  But Guy must look beyond
+that.  He must marry in his own rank.  Failing that, he must marry a
+woman with money."
+
+Lady Mary spoke with an equal irritation.
+
+"You are unjust, father, unjust both to Guy and Isobel.  You have no
+right to ruin these two young lives with your prejudices and your
+old-world notions."  Her voice dropped into a half-sob as she concluded.
+"What is there in the world better than real love?  And these two love
+each other devotedly."
+
+The Earl was about to reply angrily, for he was a somewhat obstinate old
+man, and hated being thwarted.  But, before he could utter a word, the
+door opened to admit Guy Rossett.
+
+Guy was a very handsome young fellow, with a winning and genial
+expression.  He advanced and shook his father's hand warmly, and kissed
+his sister with equal affection.
+
+The Earl beamed upon him.  Guy was his favourite of the two sons.
+Ticehurst was a languid young man about town, who did not appeal greatly
+to his more robust father.
+
+"Well, Guy, my dear boy, delighted to see you.  Have you brought us any
+news?"
+
+Mary shot a warning glance at her father.  Lord Saxham was always
+preaching reticence to other people, but he never observed it himself.
+If Guy had been just a little more subtle than he was, he would have
+smelt a rat at once.
+
+Guy spoke in his frank, almost boyish voice.
+
+"Splendid news, sir, but so good that I want to keep it to myself for a
+little bit.  Shall we say till after dinner, when the servants have
+gone, and we are quite by ourselves."
+
+"By all means."  It was Mary's sweet, gentle voice that answered.  "I am
+sure I should like to keep very good news to myself for a time; hug it
+as it were.  After dinner, Guy!"
+
+Later on, they went into the dining-room.  The meal was a somewhat
+tedious and long repast.  Lord Saxham, who was a bit of a gourmet, liked
+to take a small portion of several dishes.  Guy was a hearty
+trencherman.
+
+Poor Lady Mary, whose thoughts inclined towards a convent, would have
+been satisfied with a cup of tea and a slice of bread and butter, but
+she had to preside over these prolonged meals.
+
+When the ponderous banquet--no lesser word could describe it--had drawn
+to a close, the footman withdrew.  It was a family party, the two men
+sat round the table and smoked.  Lady Mary waited to hear the great
+news.  And then Guy unburthened himself.
+
+"The biggest stroke of luck in the world, sir.  After fooling about in
+the Foreign Office for all these years, Greatorex sent for me to go into
+his private room.  A very short interview: Greatorex doesn't waste
+words.  I am to go to the Embassy at Madrid."
+
+Lady Mary preserved her sweet calm.  The Earl did not move an eyelid.
+He lifted his glass of port.
+
+"Success to you, my boy.  You have got a chance now.  And I am sure you
+will make good."
+
+The young man drained his glass also.
+
+"Yes, I think I shall make good.  What I just wanted was a chance."
+
+Mary shot a warning glance at her father.  It was just on the cards that
+he might have blurted out something that would have hurt his son's
+pride, led him to understand that it was his father's secret influence
+that had got him this post.
+
+But, fortunately, at this stage the Earl's mental faculties were not
+very acute.  He was already beginning to nod over his port.
+
+A few moments later, Lord Saxham's somnolent faculties became more fully
+developed.  Mary pointed to the terrace which was approached by the
+dining-room windows.  She leaned across the table and whispered.
+
+"Shall we take a stroll?  I would like to talk all this over with you."
+
+Guy nodded and rose.  They went noiselessly to the terrace, and sat down
+on one of the numerous seats, overlooking the lovely gardens beneath.
+
+Mary opened the conversation at once.
+
+"Is this--this good news--going to make any difference to you, Guy?"
+
+There was just a note of anxiety in her voice.
+
+Guy looked at her squarely.
+
+"What do you mean, Mary?  Difference in what way?"
+
+"Difference between you and Isobel?" answered Mary, in a voice that
+shook a little.  "You love each other so dearly.  I would hate to think
+that anything could come between you."
+
+Guy laughed his hearty, boyish laugh.
+
+"Dear old girl, you know I have always told the truth to you.  I would
+sooner go to the devil with Isobel Clandon, than to heaven with some
+delightful bride that our dear old dad had chosen for me.  As soon as I
+am on my feet, Isobel will be my wife."
+
+Mary patted his hand affectionately.
+
+"I am so delighted to hear you say that.  But one never quite knows men.
+There is father, in a way sentimental, but on certain things he can be
+as hard as granite."
+
+Guy Rossett frowned.
+
+"Oh, I know.  He hates the idea of my marrying Isobel.  I suppose when I
+do he will forbid me the house, and cut me off with a shilling, eh?"
+
+Mary looked at him, with a soft gleam in her kind, beautiful eyes.
+
+"Oh, no, he will not do that.  And if he wanted to, I should not let
+him.  You know, I have more influence over him than anybody."
+
+"Except, perhaps, Ticehurst?" suggested Guy, in a tone that was not
+quite free from bitterness.  He was not over-fond of his elder brother.
+
+Mary shook her head.
+
+She was fond of both her brothers, but she was not oblivious of
+Ticehurst's faults.
+
+"Don't worry about that, dear old boy.  Eric has no influence over him
+at all.  And when the dreadful deed is done, and Isobel is your wife,
+dear old dad will rage and fume, and all that.  But he will come round
+in the end, and finish by loving Isobel as much as he does me.  Don't
+worry.  Go on with it."
+
+Guy kissed her.
+
+"By Jove, you are a pal, Mary.  Then I can count on you to back me up."
+
+"Of course," was Mary's confident reply.
+
+There was silence between them for a little while, while Guy puffed at
+his cigarette, and his sister was cogitating as to her next method of
+attack.  Brought up in a household of three men, she knew it was
+somewhat difficult to storm the masculine citadel.
+
+Presently she spoke.
+
+"And what about finance, Guy?  Are things easy there?"
+
+The boyish look disappeared from the young man's face.  Her question had
+seemed to disturb his equanimity.  He was quite frank.
+
+"That's the devil of it, Mary.  You know my old friend Jackson?"
+
+Mary gave a little sigh.  Yes, she had heard of Jackson from both
+brothers.  He was a high-class moneylender, who accommodated young men
+of good family.
+
+"Yes, I know all about Jackson.  How much do you owe him?"
+
+Her brother reflected.
+
+"Something between five and six hundred," he said, after a pause.
+
+Mary spoke decidedly.
+
+"You must clear that off before you go to Spain--you must have a clean
+sheet."
+
+She reflected also, before she spoke again.
+
+"I can let you have two hundred and fifty out of what I have saved."
+
+Guy interrupted.
+
+"You sweet little soul, you never spend anything except in charities."
+
+"I know," answered his sister quietly.  "Anyway, there is my two hundred
+and fifty, and I must coax the rest out of dad.  You must go to Spain
+with a clean sheet.  That is absolutely essential."
+
+Guy answered with his boyish laugh and with his boyish exuberance.
+
+"It is too awfully dear and kind of you, and you can guess how I
+appreciate it.  But I am not going to let my sister waste her money on
+two graceless scamps like Ticehurst and myself.  And I don't sponge on
+my father, either."
+
+Mary protested gently.
+
+"Oh, Guy, how unjust of both yourself and Eric.  You know that is not my
+opinion of either of you."  Guy took her slender hand in his own.
+
+"You dear old girl, you are only just a little bit lower than the
+angels; you have always had wings growing since you were a wee toddler.
+But I am going to see this thing through on my own.  Jackson is an old
+scoundrel of course, but he never presses one very hard.  I shall square
+him all right."
+
+Mary said no more on the subject.  Both her brothers inherited the
+paternal obstinacy.  When they had once made up their minds, nothing
+could move them.
+
+But she sighed a little.  It would have been so much better if Guy could
+have got rid of this odious moneylender, and have landed in Spain with a
+clean sheet.  He would have been free from any pecuniary worries, and,
+therefore, in a better mood to attend to his work.
+
+Jackson was done with, but there was another subject which she wanted to
+broach before this interview was ended.  And it was a rather delicate
+one.  It was some little time before she spoke again.
+
+"And how about that woman, Violet Hargrave?  Are you quite clear of her?
+It is not fair to Isobel that you should keep up even a semblance of
+friendship with such an odious person."
+
+Guy laughed, but this time his laugh did not ring clear and boyish; it
+betrayed uneasiness.
+
+"Oh, come, Mary, you are a bit uncharitable, aren't you.  Violet
+Hargrave is generally considered a charming, not an odious, person."
+
+His sister spoke a little sternly for her.
+
+"I don't pretend to have a man's knowledge of the world, but I have not
+been brought up in a nursery.  I know her type, and it is one from which
+any pure woman, and any decent man, ought to shrink.  Have you given her
+up?"
+
+Guy looked her squarely in the face.
+
+"Honestly, Mary, I have, just after I met Isobel.  Of course, a man
+can't throw a woman over in a second, but I have cooled down gradually.
+At the present moment, I think the fascinating widow hates me."
+
+Mary rose and spoke decidedly.
+
+"I am glad to have your assurance of that.  If it had not been so, I
+might have felt it my duty to warn Isobel.  She is too sterling a girl
+to be played with."
+
+Her brother rose too, half resentful, half admiring.  It was not the
+first time that Lady Mary had spoken salutary words of wisdom to him.
+
+"By Jove, Mary, you are uncompromising.  Do you mean to say you would
+give me away to Isobel--me, your own brother?"
+
+"Of course," answered Mary firmly.  "To Isobel, or any other woman, if I
+thought you were unworthy of her."
+
+Admiration conquered.  He tucked her arm in his, as they returned to the
+house.
+
+"You dear old girl, you are one out of a million.  But you know you are
+a little uncomfortable at times, and when you are inclined that way, you
+have a knack of making a fellow feel a bit of a worm."
+
+Mary laughed pleasantly.
+
+"So good for you feeling that, dear old boy, and equally good for Eric.
+I expect dad has woken up by now, and wondering where we have got to."
+They found the Earl wide-awake.  The doze of a few minutes over his port
+had refreshed him immensely.  He fell at once to discussing Spain, a
+country he knew well.
+
+In his youth, Lord Saxham had been an attache at the Spanish Court, and
+he knew the ropes.  Guy listened respectfully to his father.
+
+The old man concluded his somewhat rambling remarks with a final
+exhortation.
+
+"And remember, my dear boy, always to keep on the right side of
+Greatorex.  He _is_ the Foreign Office.  Secretaries, mere figure-heads,
+come and go with different Governments.  Greatorex remains there,
+permanent, unchangeable.  Get into his good graces, and your fortune is
+made."
+
+Guy promised that he would do his best to propitiate the all-powerful
+Greatorex.  Two days later he left.  He undertook to pay them a farewell
+visit before he started for Spain.
+
+The Earl and his daughter watched the car flying down the avenue.  The
+old man turned to his daughter with a grunt.
+
+"Might have given us another couple of days, I think.  But I know what's
+in his mind.  He is running down to Eastbourne after that minx."
+
+He always alluded to Isobel Clandon as "that minx," owing to his
+unreasonable prejudice against her.
+
+Mary spoke with spirit.
+
+"Very natural under the circumstances, I should think.  He would want to
+see something of the girl he loves before he left."
+
+Lord Saxham turned on her angrily.
+
+"Mary, I have always thought you a sensible woman.  Do you mean to tell
+me you are going to aid and abet him in his folly."
+
+Lady Mary answered him in a few words.
+
+"I don't call it folly, father."
+
+She walked out of the room, with a resolute expression on her face, and
+uplifted chin.  She would have been the last to admit it, but she had
+inherited no small share of the family obstinacy.
+
+CHAPTER TWO.
+
+Mrs Hargrave sat in her pretty flat in Mount Street, absorbed in deep
+thought.  On her lap lay an open letter, and it was a passage in that
+letter just received which accounted for her preoccupation.
+
+She was a pretty woman, _petite_ and slender, with clear-cut, refined
+features and delicate colouring.  She had soft, candid blue eyes, and a
+wealth of fair hair which was always arranged in the most becoming
+fashion.
+
+In a strong and searching light, a keen judge would have guessed her
+real age, just a little over the wrong side of thirty.  But she was
+quite a clever person, and she always avoided strong lights as much as
+possible.  Under favourable conditions, most people took her to be at
+least four or five years younger.  She owned herself to twenty-six.
+
+There was no getting at the truth of the matter.  Since she first came
+to London, four years ago, having been married abroad to her husband,
+Jack Hargrave, a young man of good family, but a bit of a _mauvais
+sujet_, she had made many acquaintances.  But she appeared to have no
+old friends who could throw any light on her real age or her
+antecedents.
+
+Her husband's relatives received her with scant cordiality, there was
+too much reticence about her previous history to incline them in her
+favour.  As a matter of fact, they were not over-fond of Jack himself.
+There had been certain early episodes in his career which had not
+endeared him to right-thinking persons.
+
+It was well-known that he was in no sense of the word a wealthy man.
+Yet he kept an expensive flat, he was always immaculately dressed, and
+his wife, to judge by her costly costumes, must have had a very liberal
+allowance.
+
+They entertained a great deal, and they had bridge parties every night
+when they were at home.  Knowing people whispered amongst themselves
+that it was their winnings at bridge which enabled them to make such a
+brave show.  They were certainly both very skilful players.  Not a few
+persons thought they were a bit too skilful, too uniformly successful.
+
+Two years after their marriage, Jack Hargrave died suddenly of
+pneumonia, the result of a neglected chill.  Strange to say, he left no
+will.  His widow explained this by the fact that he had made all his
+property over to her, by deed of gift, soon after their marriage, as he
+did not want her to be burdened with death duties.
+
+Things were not altered in any way by Jack's death.  His widow kept on
+the expensive flat in Mount Street.  When a decent period of mourning
+had elapsed, she appeared in her usual tasteful costumes, and resumed
+her bridge parties.
+
+There was nothing to wonder at in this.  If Jack Hargrave had made over
+all his property to her, she was as well-off after his death as before.
+Rather better, as there was only one to spend the income instead of two.
+
+A certain thing, however, did occur which made some people suspicious.
+Her husband's relatives, who had never been more than coldly civil
+during Jack's lifetime, now dropped her altogether.
+
+Jack, who was a few years younger than his wife, had been at Eton and
+Oxford with Guy Rossett, and they were old friends.  When Hargrave
+returned from abroad with his pretty bride, he had hunted up Guy and
+induced him to become a frequent visitor in Mount Street.
+
+Guy was considerably attracted by the young hostess.  Of course, he knew
+that his friend was looked at askance by many people, and he knew
+nothing more than the rest about Mrs Hargrave's antecedents.
+
+When the fair young widow resumed her normal existence, and her bridge
+parties, young Rossett again became a frequent visitor.  And now that
+there was no obstacle in the shape of a husband, he allowed her to see
+that her attraction for him had grown very considerably.
+
+She met him more than half-way.  There was no doubt that the attraction
+was mutual.  But there were other reasons that weighed strongly with
+her.  Guy had a small allowance from his father, but it was supplemented
+by a very handsome one from his great-aunt, an old lady of eighty, who
+would also leave him her very considerable private fortune.
+
+In every sense, he was a most eligible person.  He was handsome,
+distinguished-looking and charming, with the perfect manners of the
+young diplomatist.  And one day, and it could not be a very long one
+now, he would be a rich man by the death of Lady Henrietta.
+
+For many months, Guy Rossett went to the flat in Mount Street, losing a
+considerable sum of money at bridge to his hostess and various members
+of her circle.
+
+There was a certain strain of caution in him, a certain recognition of
+the fact that he would require to know a good deal more than he did
+about the charming widow's past, before he committed himself definitely,
+that kept the sense of attraction on his side within reasonable bounds.
+
+Still, there is no knowing what might have happened, but for the
+occurrence of a certain event.  Mrs Hargrave was very charming, very
+subtle, equipped with all the wiles of a clever and experienced woman.
+One day, his self-control might have given way, her fascination might
+have overpowered his prudence, and he would have committed himself
+beyond recall.
+
+Then something happened which switched away his thoughts for ever from
+the flat in Mount Street and its fascinating owner.  At a certain
+country house he met Isobel Clandon, the daughter of a retired general,
+a widower who lived at Eastbourne.
+
+He took her in to dinner the first night of his arrival, and he knew he
+had found the woman of his dreams.  Isobel was a lovely girl of
+twenty-two, a little above the middle height, a vision of beauty and
+grace.
+
+Her fresh and virginal charm, her spontaneous gaiety, drove out all
+recollection of the more artificial attractions of the older woman.  The
+one suggested the brightness and freshness of spring, the other fading
+tints of summer.
+
+It was love at first sight on both sides, and Guy knew that he had never
+really loved before.  And Isobel had not even flirted with a man before
+she saw him.  She came to him whole-hearted, and he came as little
+scarred as a man might be who has lived twenty-seven years in the world,
+and seen and known many women.
+
+Mrs Hargrave roused herself from her reverie, and took up the letter
+for the second time.  It was from an intimate acquaintance, and the
+envelope bore the Eastbourne post-mark.  Again she read that particular
+paragraph which had so perturbed her.
+
+  "I have at last succeeded in meeting your Miss Clandon at a
+  garden-party.  I made myself as pleasant as I could, and you know I
+  can make myself pretty well liked when I try.  I think she has taken a
+  fancy to me, and that we shall be great friends presently.  I am going
+  to tea with her to-morrow, and will let you know if I can get anything
+  definite out of her.
+
+  "She is twenty-two, and certainly a lovely girl, also a very charming
+  one.  I introduced Mr Rossett's name, of course, and she just looked
+  a little shy.  But I could not get her to say much, only this, that he
+  is coming down to Eastbourne directly, and that he has just secured an
+  important appointment abroad, at the British Embassy in Spain.
+
+  "She wears no engagement ring, so they are not publicly betrothed.
+  But I am sure there is a very good understanding between them."
+
+The widow threw the letter down on her lap, with a fierce exclamation.
+
+"Twenty-two, and a lovely girl," she muttered angrily.  "Some pink and
+white beauty, I suppose, immature, knowing nothing of life.  And these
+are the women who catch men of the world with their youth and
+innocence."
+
+Her face grew hard, she looked almost plain, and for the moment her
+thirty years showed themselves unmistakably.
+
+She tore the offending note into fragments, and threw them into a dainty
+little waste-paper basket--everything about the flat was dainty.
+
+"But I will get even with Mr Guy Rossett before long," she cried
+vindictively, as she returned to her seat.
+
+It was somewhere about ten o'clock in the morning when she indulged in
+these bitter reflections, when she had to admit, in the face of that
+letter, that her ambitious schemes had gone astray.
+
+At the same hour, a tall and corpulent gentleman, attired in an elegant
+morning coat and silk hat, descended the steps of his house at Walton,
+stepped into the Rolls-Royce car waiting for him, drove to the station,
+and took the train to London.
+
+He was known in his business, and in the neighbourhood, as Mr Jackson,
+although his foreign appearance and swarthy complexion gave the direct
+lie to his English name.
+
+Not for him the easy bowler or soft hat, and the lounge suit.  He had an
+idea that to be successful in business it was necessary to preserve the
+old traditions.  Financial stability was suggested by the frock coat and
+the topper.
+
+He described himself as a financier, and so in a certain sense he was.
+But in spite of the name of Jackson, he was a Spaniard by birth, and his
+real cognomen was Juan Jaques.  As regards his business, he was a
+moneylender, pure and simple.
+
+He had a spacious suite of offices in one of the most private-looking
+houses in Dover Street.  His staff was small, consisting of a
+confidential woman secretary who typed his letters, generally suave, but
+occasionally menacing; an equally confidential clerk who kept his
+accounts; and a smart office boy.
+
+From this agreeable point of vantage, he accommodated young men of good
+family, and equally good prospects, when they were temporarily hard up.
+He had a very select _clientele_, and, to do him justice, for a
+moneylender, he was not extortionate.  "Treat your clients fairly, and
+they will come again.  You make regular customers of them.  They don't
+go buzzing off to Tom, Dick, and Harry."  These were the principles on
+which he conducted his very lucrative business.
+
+He was in a very good humour this morning, as he got out of the taxi
+which had brought him from Waterloo to his office.
+
+There were very few letters, but their contents pleased him; they
+suggested good business.  The last one was from Guy Rossett, who
+intimated that he would call about twelve o'clock, as he wanted to have
+a short chat.
+
+The astute Spaniard, known to all but a very few as the naturalised
+Englishman, Jackson, smiled.
+
+He had not enjoyed the pleasure of Guy's acquaintance very long.  Mrs
+Hargrave had brought the two men together, and the introduction had been
+effected through the following circumstances.
+
+At a certain period, Guy had found himself very short of money,
+practically due to bridge losses at the flat in Mount Street.  He had
+rather hesitatingly asked the charming widow if she knew of any decent
+moneylender, who would finance him at a rate of interest that was not
+too extortionate.
+
+Violet had raised her candid blue eyes--they were her best asset--to
+his, with a world of pity in them.
+
+"Oh, Mr Rossett, I am so sorry to hear of this.  It is all this
+horrible bridge.  I always seem lucky, but such a lot of my friends have
+bad luck.  I think I shall give up these parties, if they are going to
+embarrass the people I like."
+
+There was a soft mist in her eyes, as she gave utterance to these noble
+sentiments.  Guy felt a little thrill pass through him.  She was not a
+mere worldling, she had her full share of real kindness, of real
+womanliness.
+
+"One's own fault, you know," he answered lightly.  "I suppose I ought to
+be old enough to take care of myself.  I needn't play bridge if I don't
+want to, need I?"
+
+Mrs Hargrave did not answer for a moment.  She seemed struggling with
+her remorseful thoughts.  Then, after a brief space, inspiration came to
+her, and she played a strong and winning card.
+
+She laid her hand upon his arm, and her voice trembled ever so little as
+she spoke.
+
+"Mr Rossett, we have been very good friends, have we not?  And you were
+a pal of dear old Jack's long before I met him."
+
+Rossett nodded.  At the moment he had no idea what she was driving at,
+or what she was leading up to.  And he was pretty quick too.
+
+"Then I want you, for the moment, to think of me as a pal.  Fancy for
+the time I am Jack, your old friend.  What I want to say is this, don't
+go to these horrible people.  They are sure to rook you.  I have a
+little money put by--dear old Jack left me comfortably off--and I make
+quite a small income out of my winnings.  Let me be your banker.  Now,
+don't be proud."
+
+Guy was profoundly touched, and he thanked her in no measured terms.
+But the idea of borrowing money from a woman, even if she were a dear
+friend, was too horrible to contemplate for a second.  Had there been no
+alternative, he would sooner have blown his brains out.
+
+He told her this, and she sighed regretfully, as one amazed at the
+obstinacy of a certain type of man.  She knew, could she once have got
+him to accept this loan, she would be sure of him.
+
+"You see, it is quite impossible," he ended, rather awkwardly.  It is
+not a pleasant thing to refuse the kindness thrust upon you in the most
+graceful way by a charming woman.  "Do you happen to know of any of
+these sharks?"
+
+Frustrated in her clever little scheme, the fair Violet reflected for a
+few seconds.  Then she spoke in a hesitating voice, as if she were
+trying to recall certain memories of the past.
+
+"Yes, I do know a man who, I believe, is a decent specimen of his kind.
+You know, a lot of people wonder that Jack was so well-off.  Well, in
+the first place, he was awfully clever, and he had two or three good
+friends in the City who gave him tips.  But he wanted a bit of capital.
+He found out this man Jackson, who has offices in Dover Street.  Jackson
+believed in him, and financed him, of course taking a good share.  That
+was only natural."
+
+Rossett pricked up his ears.  The thing that had puzzled so many people
+was already partly explained.  Jack had been, as his wife said, a clever
+fellow, and a bit of a dark horse.  He had been making money in the City
+in a subterranean way, with the help of the philanthropic Mr Jackson,
+who, no doubt, had looked after his own share of the profits.  But why
+the deuce had not Jack Hargrave told this openly to his intimates?  Then
+all _innuendos_ and suspicions would have been silenced at once.
+
+Mrs Hargrave went on in her sweet, low voice.  "I don't think I have
+ever told this to a soul.  You will respect my confidence.  I always
+thought it a little silly of Jack, but he made a point of keeping the
+secret to himself."
+
+"Need you ask the question?" queried Guy Rossett reproachfully.
+
+"No, I am sure I can trust you.  Well, this man Jackson; by the way,
+that is not his real name, he is a naturalised Spaniard.  I see him
+sometimes on a few matters in which he is still interested, and which he
+looks after for me.  I will give you a note to him, and ask him to treat
+you very gently."
+
+But, before she moved to her writing-table, she again looked pleadingly
+at him.
+
+"Are you sure you will not reconsider my suggestion?  Surely you would
+rather be indebted to me than to a mere sordid moneylender?"
+
+Again Guy repeated his thanks.  But on this point he was adamant;
+nothing would move him.
+
+He took the letter of introduction to Mr Jackson.  This gentleman was
+affability itself.  Mrs Hargrave's introduction was quite sufficient.
+Guy was too much a gentleman to put searching questions as to Jackson's
+private knowledge of the Hargraves, husband and wife.
+
+On his side, Mr Jackson had the private _dossier_ of every eligible
+young man, from the moneylender's point of view, entered in his
+reference book.  He knew all about the Earl of Saxham, and the Lady
+Henrietta.  Young Mr Rossett was quite a desirable client.  He was
+pleased to add him to his list.
+
+As a matter of fact, the loan was quite a small one, and was granted on
+reasonable terms.  There was no speculative element in the transaction.
+Guy was a young man who might make a mistake now and again, but he would
+never kick over the traces for long, and he was as straight as a die.
+
+On this particular morning, Mr Jackson received him with the greatest
+affability.
+
+"Delighted to see you, Mr Rossett.  Too early for a drink, I am afraid,
+but have a cigar."
+
+He pushed across a box of cigars that even a Spanish Jew could not have
+bought under half a crown apiece.
+
+"Now, what is it, Mr Rossett?  Just a little more ready, I suppose?"
+
+Guy bit off the end of the very excellent cigar with a composed air.  He
+had not the appearance of a suppliant for financial favours.
+
+"Not quite as bad as that, Mr Jackson.  But I have a bill for six
+hundred due next month.  It would be a great convenience to me if you
+would renew half when it falls due, of course on the usual terms."
+
+For a moment, Mr Jackson's face fell.  He had hoped he was going to get
+deeper into the young man's ribs, looking forward to that blessed day
+when Lady Henrietta's fortune would wipe off all arrears.
+
+Then, the next moment, he cheered up.  Guy was not going to be a very
+big customer, but he was a safe one.  A young man who could pay off half
+of his indebtedness was to be trusted.  Not much waiting, just quick
+profits.
+
+It took them a few moments to discuss the details of the extension of
+the loan.  When these had been settled, Mr Jackson consulted his watch.
+
+"I think, Mr Rossett, we might venture upon a small bottle now, what do
+you think?"
+
+Guy really did not want anything to drink at this comparatively early
+hour of the morning.  But, in view of further favours, it would not be
+politic to check his host's hospitable impulses.
+
+The moneylender produced a very excellent small bottle of _veuve
+cliquot_.  The two men sat chatting for some time.  Suddenly, the
+telephone bell rang.
+
+What was whispered down it seemed to agitate Mr Jackson a little.
+Rossett could, of course, only catch his disjointed replies.
+
+"Actually left the house, you say, on the way.  Ought always to give me
+notice.  Might be too busy.  Well, it can't be helped.  Good-bye."
+
+As a matter of fact, it was Mrs Hargrave's maid who had rung up to tell
+him that her mistress was on her way to his office.  He knew enough to
+be sure that a meeting between Violet and Rossett would be very
+disturbing to both, hence his discomfiture.
+
+Mount Street to Dover Street in a taxi is not a very far cry.  If Guy
+Rossett did not swallow his champagne and clear out in a few seconds,
+the meeting was inevitable.  The only apartments were the outer office,
+the waiting-room, and his own sanctum, and they all led into each other.
+
+Guy, not being thirsty, drank his wine very leisurely.  Then he rose to
+go, but some minutes had elapsed, and at the moment he rose the office
+boy brought in a slip of folded paper, on which was written Mrs
+Hargrave's name.
+
+"Many thanks for meeting me in this little matter, Mr Jackson.  Well,
+for the present, good-bye."  And poor Guy Rossett, fondly thinking that
+he had laid the ghosts of the past, emerged from Jackson's room to be
+confronted with Violet Hargrave, seated in one of those luxurious easy
+chairs which the hospitable foreigner provided for his waiting clients.
+
+He put the best face he could on the situation, and advanced with
+outstretched hand.
+
+"An unexpected pleasure, Mrs Hargrave," he cried in a very uncertain
+voice.  A more embarrassed specimen of a budding diplomatist could not
+have been observed.
+
+The pretty widow ignored the outstretched hand.  She looked at him
+steadily, and the blue eyes were no longer soft and limpid, but hard as
+steel.
+
+"I think," she said in a voice that was as hard as her glance, "you are
+indulging in the language of diplomacy, which is usually used to
+disguise one's real thoughts."
+
+Rossett turned red, and began, in his agitation, to stammer forth lame
+and foolish excuses.
+
+"I have been awfully busy lately, you know, not had time for anything in
+the social line.  The truth is, Mrs Hargrave, I have just woke up to
+the fact that I have been wasting a good part of my life.  I am really
+going in now for work, hard work, and ambition."
+
+She swept him with a contemptuous glance.
+
+"Is this supposed to be an apology for your despicable conduct as
+regards myself?"
+
+"As you please to take it, Mrs Hargrave."  Knowing he was utterly in
+the wrong, he took refuge in a sort of sullen dignity.
+
+Her voice grew more scornful as she answered in her clear, vibrant
+tones.
+
+"I should not like to detain you even for a moment, when you have such a
+laudable object in view.  If you are going to atone for those wasted
+years, you will have a tremendous lot of leeway to make up.  You cannot
+spare a second.  Good day."  He could not rally under her sharp tongue
+and keen woman's wit.  He bowed, and was about to move away when she
+stopped him with an imperious gesture.
+
+"One moment of your valuable time, if you please, Mr Rossett.  You are
+fond of running away when the situation becomes a little inconvenient to
+yourself.  But on this, I hope, our last meeting, I wish to say a few
+words to you, which it is well you should hear.  May I presume to
+trespass on your time for a few seconds longer?"
+
+There was still in her tones the same bitter note of sarcasm.  But by
+this time, Guy had recovered himself a little, and was able to muster a
+remnant of dignity.
+
+"My time is at your disposal," he replied quietly.
+
+"You have not acted the part of a gentleman, Mr Rossett.  You were
+supposed to be my husband's friend; you pretended to be mine.  Certain
+events occurred, the nature of which it is easy to guess, which caused
+you to think my friendship was no longer desirable.  That is the truth,
+is it not?  Be frank for once, if a diplomatist can ever be frank."
+
+She dominated the situation.  Rossett could only stammer forth a
+shamefaced admission that it was the truth.
+
+"You admit it.  Would you not have played a more manly part, if you had
+come to me with a frank and proper explanation of those events?"
+
+"That is just what I ought to have done," said Guy Rossett humbly.  He
+had never admired her more than now.  Up to the present moment he had no
+idea that this dainty, slender woman, more or less of a butterfly, had
+such spirit in her fragile frame.
+
+"Instead of that," pursued Violet Hargrave in her inflexible, vibrating
+tones, "you adopt a device pursued by many men I know, by the type of
+man who lacks moral courage.  I am afraid I shall hurt you a little now,
+but I don't mind because you have hurt me, and I want to cry quits.  You
+adopted the coward's device of running away from the woman to whom you
+were afraid to tell the truth."
+
+Rossett was utterly beaten.  He could not say a word in self-defence.
+He stood speechless under the lash of her scorn, her not unjustifiable
+indignation.  She dismissed him with a wave of her hand.
+
+"I will keep you no longer, Mr Rossett.  For some years we were rather
+intimate friends.  To-day we are strangers.  As a stranger, I will bid
+you good-bye."
+
+And Guy Rossett was happy to escape.  He had never felt more humiliated
+in his life.
+
+He put himself into a taxi, and drove straight to the St James's Club,
+beloved of diplomatists.  He ruminated ruefully over his discomfiture at
+the hands of the sharp-tongued Mrs Hargrave.
+
+"Some women have the knack of making a man feel like a worm," he thought
+bitterly.  "Mary has it in her quiet, incisive way.  Violet has it to
+perfection."
+
+The young widow entered the sanctum of the moneylender.  Outwardly, her
+demeanour was calm, but in her breast a volcano was raging.  Her pride
+had been humbled, her hopes ruthlessly crushed.  She was raging with all
+the resentful impotence of the woman scorned.
+
+Jackson met her with outstretched hands, and took both of hers.
+
+"My poor little Violet," he said kindly.  "I can see you are very upset;
+at least, it is plain to me who have known you from a baby.  If you had
+only told your maid to 'phone me up before you started, I would have
+delayed you, and prevented this."
+
+She sank down on a chair with a little weary sigh.  "You have always
+been my best friend, Juan.  Heaven knows what I should have done or
+where I should have been without you."
+
+"Tut, tut."  The "financier" was very human where women were concerned.
+"And you are fond of this fellow, eh, apart from other considerations?"
+
+"I was, Juan, but now I hate him," was the uncompromising reply.
+"Still, on the whole, I am not sure I would have missed that little talk
+with him.  Clever young man of the world as he is, ready and quick as he
+was, I cut him to the quick.  I made him feel very small."
+
+Jackson chuckled.  "I will wager you gave him a good dressing down, when
+you once started.  Well now, my child, I guess you want to see me on
+something important."
+
+"Something very important," was the reply.
+
+The two drew their chairs closely together, and conversed in low tones,
+using the Spanish language.
+
+CHAPTER THREE.
+
+To a man of Lord Saxham's ancient lineage and broad acres, although
+those same broad acres were somewhat heavily encumbered, General Clandon
+was a mere nobody.  He was just one of the many thousands of persons who
+are entitled to be called gentlemen, as a matter of courtesy, but have
+no claim to rank in the same category with pure aristocracy.
+
+All the same, the General came of very respectable stock, from that
+section of the small landowning class which is the backbone of the
+territorial interest.  His forbears had been settled in Kent for some
+six generations.  His eldest brother, Hugh Clandon, who had ruled over
+Clandon Place, had a rent roll of some five thousand a year clear.
+
+To an ordinary person, in a lower walk of life, this would seem by no
+means a despicable income.  But Clandon Place was a large house, and
+cost a good deal to keep up, even on an economical scale.  And all the
+Clandons, with the solitary exception of the General himself, were
+exceedingly prolific.
+
+His brother Hugh had eight children.  He was one of ten.  Daughters had
+to be portioned off, sons had to be educated and started in the world.
+Geoffrey Clandon inherited a few thousands on his father's death; he
+always thought his father must have been a wonderful man to leave so
+much, considering the calls upon him.  The General contrived to live
+upon the modest income derived from this small capital, plus his
+half-pay.
+
+He now lived at Eastbourne upon the somewhat slender revenue.  When he
+died, his only child, Isobel, would have a few hundred pounds a year to
+call her own.
+
+In his youth, he had been exceedingly handsome, and, had he been of a
+more worldly turn of mind, he might easily have married money.  Instead,
+he married for love, and never repented it.  His wife brought him no
+fortune, but she brought him other things beyond price.
+
+Mrs Clandon died when Isobel was sixteen, and all the intense love
+which the General had borne his wife was transferred to his daughter,
+who fully reciprocated her father's devotion.
+
+She was a very sweet and lovable girl, perhaps just a little wiser and
+older than her actual years, as is often the case with only children,
+who have been brought up in close companionship with their parents.
+
+She looked after his house admirably, saw that his meals were well
+cooked and daintily served.  As for herself, thanks to an admirable
+figure, and a knack of knowing how to wear her clothes, she always
+looked smartly turned out on a most slender allowance.
+
+They lived on the outskirts of Eastbourne, in an unpretentious house, a
+cottage which had been turned into a half villa.  All the added rooms
+were spacious, with the original low ceilings, which gave a picturesque
+effect.
+
+There was over an acre of garden, and half of that was devoted to the
+cultivation of flowers.  Isobel adored flowers, and loved to see bowls
+of them in the different rooms.  She was no mean gardener herself, and
+often worked hard in conjunction with the rather ancient person who
+attended to the small domain.
+
+County society did not have anything to say to General Clandon and his
+daughter, they were too small fry, but in the selecter circles of
+strictly Eastbourne residents they were considerable figures.
+
+The General had preferred not to settle down in his native place, near
+his brother.  His means were too small to allow him to compete on equal
+terms with the local magnates who were his contemporaries.  He was a
+very proud man, and he was still more sensitive on Isobel's account.
+
+From all she had heard of small county society, of which her uncle was a
+specimen, she did not think she had missed much.  She was quite happy in
+her little circle at Eastbourne; it was more amusing, and not at all
+stiff or pretentious.
+
+Once a year, since she was eighteen, she had a brief glimpse of a more
+fashionable world.  The General had kept up a life-long intimacy with an
+old and wealthy friend, Sir William Glanville, who owned a large estate
+in Kent.  Every autumn an invitation came for the shooting, and in that
+invitation Isobel was included.
+
+Here she met people, men and women of quite a different calibre, spoiled
+children of the world, used to luxury from their cradle.  Yet she was
+not sure that she enjoyed these visits very greatly.  The profusion of
+wealth contrasted too sharply with their own daily mode of life.
+
+If her father by some miracle should come into a fortune, and she smiled
+at the absurd thought, no doubt she would bear herself as bravely as
+these other girls she met.
+
+But that last visit, that delicious last visit, she had thoroughly
+enjoyed.  Guy Rossett had taken her into dinner, and danced attendance
+on her for the best part of a delightful week.  At last she had met a
+man who seemed to stand a head and shoulders above his fellows.
+
+But for a little time much sadness was mingled with her joy.
+
+On more than one night, when Guy's glance had thrilled her, when Guy's
+gentle pressure of the hand, as he bade her good night, had set her
+heart fluttering, she had cried herself to sleep.
+
+She had heard all about him from her hostess, a kind-hearted, gossiping
+soul.  He was the second son of a wealthy peer of ancient lineage.  With
+his father's influence, he would be sure to obtain eminence in the
+diplomatic field.  And he would inherit a big fortune from his
+grand-aunt, the Lady Henrietta.
+
+Poor Isobel felt a very lonely maiden as she listened to this splendid
+recital.  As a mere man, with his good looks and charm, he could choose
+where he liked.  With these advantages in addition, he could pick from
+the noblest in the land.
+
+Of course, she was a little fool, and the sooner she said good-bye to
+her vain dreams the better.  Guy Rossett was attracted by her for the
+moment, no doubt.  But it was impossible a man in his position, with his
+prospects, could mean anything serious.  Could a man, in whose veins ran
+the blood of a dozen earls, choose for his wife the descendant of paltry
+squires?
+
+And then had come that wonderful day, a day in her life ever to be
+marked with a white stone, when Guy had overtaken her as she was
+indulging in a solitary ramble in the now leafless park.
+
+In impassioned words he had told her how he loved her, how she was the
+one woman in the world he wanted for his wife.  He loved her.  Did she
+care for him?  Dazed, and overjoyed with her happiness, her lovely dark
+eyes half suffused with tears, she faltered forth a trembling yes.
+
+He took her in his arms, and gave her her first lover's kiss.
+
+Then, when her brain had ceased to whirl, when she could recover from
+the great shock of her newly-found joy, she began to think.
+
+"But it is all a dream," she murmured.  "It is impossible."
+
+"Impossible!" repeated Guy.  "Why do you use the word?"
+
+"But, of course, you can see.  You are the son of an aristocrat, big
+even amongst aristocrats.  I am a nobody.  Lady Glanville tells me you
+are going to be an ambassador, or something dreadfully big and
+awe-inspiring."
+
+Guy laughed genially.  "Oh, you sweet little soul.  Has that dear old
+woman been filling you with all that sort of stuff?  Haven't brains
+enough, my darling.  And, if it should turn out true, and I do become an
+ambassador, you will grow up with me, and you'll find the part of
+ambassador's wife fit you like a glove."
+
+But, presently, after the first rhapsodies had passed, they began to
+talk soberly.
+
+Guy had to state that his father, splendid old fellow as he was, none
+better, was very prejudiced and, as his son put it with more than filial
+frankness, "as obstinate as a mule."
+
+Isobel nodded her pretty dark head.  "I understand quite.  He will want
+you to marry in your own station of life, choose a girl who has been
+brought up in the same world."
+
+Guy nodded.  "You've hit it.  A sort of girl who would know, by
+inherited instinct, all the sort of tricks that are expected from an
+ambassador's wife.  You see, I take it for granted I am going to be an
+ambassador."
+
+Isobel looked at him fondly.  In her present rapturous mood, she thought
+he could be anything he liked, if he gave his mind to it.
+
+Then Guy spoke quite gravely and seriously.
+
+"Now, we have got to consider the two fathers, yours and mine.  We will
+take yours first, because I think he'll do whatever you tell him."
+
+"He generally does," replied Isobel, with a smile that showed all her
+dimples.
+
+"Good.  I leave to-morrow, you are off the day after.  Don't tell him
+anything till you get back to Eastbourne.  Then let him know exactly
+what has passed between us to-day, that I have admitted frankly I shall
+have a hard job on my part.  I want to get my father's consent, because
+I wish you to be welcomed by the family.  Dear old Aunt Henrietta will
+never interfere with me, she's too good a sort."
+
+"Yes," answered Isobel happily.  "I will tell him all that."
+
+"And please add that I should wish to come down to Eastbourne, as soon
+as convenient to him, and put all the facts before him.  I want first to
+get his consent, and I know I am asking it under peculiar
+circumstances."
+
+A slight cloud gathered over the girl's lovely face.  "I am quite sure
+of my darling old dad," she said.  "I'm a little afraid of yours."
+
+"There's nothing to be frightened of, sweetheart," said her lover
+confidently.  "Whether he gives his consent or not, you are going to be
+my wife.  I'm quite independent of him.  But, as I said just now, I
+would prefer to bring him round before, instead of after."
+
+"But do you think that possible?" inquired Isobel anxiously.
+
+Guy reflected.  "It's a pretty even chance," he said presently.  "And,
+you see.  I've got Mary on my side."
+
+Isobel lifted questioning eyes.  "You have never spoken of Mary before.
+Who is she?  I suppose your sister?"
+
+"Yes, my sister, and the sweetest, dearest girl in the wide world.  Just
+an angel without the wings, and they are growing, I believe.  Not that
+she is meek and mild, and all that sort of thing.  She can hit out as
+straight from the shoulder as a man when she chooses.  But tell her a
+tale of two true lovers, and she will never be happy till she brings
+them together."
+
+"What a darling!" cried Isobel, in deep admiration.  "How I should love
+to meet her."
+
+"No difficulty about that," answered Guy easily.  "As soon as I have
+arranged matters with the General, we will fix up a little lunch in
+London.  You bring your father up; I'll bring Mary up."
+
+"How lovely!" sighed Isobel.  Truly, a new world, a delightful world,
+was opening to her.
+
+The Clandons returned to their modest little nest at Eastbourne.  On the
+first evening of their return, Isobel, sitting on a low footstool close
+to the General's chair, told him the wonderful story of Guy Rossett's
+love for her, of her love for Guy.
+
+Her father listened sympathetically.  He was intensely proud that his
+beloved daughter had chanced upon a wooer worthy of her.  He had never
+dared to hope for such an alliance.  Isobel was deserving of any Fairy
+Prince, but where was the Fairy Prince to come from?
+
+But he was wise and experienced.  It would not be all fair sailing,
+there were rocks ahead.  Guy had himself admitted that the Earl of
+Saxham would prove a formidable obstacle.  The General agreed that, were
+he in Lord Saxham's place, he would not give his consent too readily.
+
+He kissed his daughter tenderly, half pleased, half regretful to see the
+intense lovelight in her eyes as she spoke of her adored lover.
+
+"Yes, tell Guy to come and see me as soon as he likes, and we will talk
+over the difficulties," he said kindly.  "I liked the young fellow very
+much, from the little I saw of him.  I am sure he is a gentleman, and I
+believe him to be straight."
+
+Isobel looked up a little reproachfully.  Her father's guarded words
+seemed to convey very faint praise of her peerless lover.
+
+"Oh, dad," she cried reproachfully.  "Guy is the soul of honour."
+
+Rossett came down, and had a long interview with General Clandon.  He
+was quite frank and manly.  He would marry Isobel whether his father
+consented or not; so far as financial matters stood, he was perfectly
+independent.  Still, for many reasons, it was better to exercise a
+little prudence, and coax the Earl into agreement.
+
+The General agreed.  "Much better, Rossett.  The question of her being
+received by your family or not will make a great difference to her at
+the start.  In the years to come, it may make a great difference to you.
+You don't want to cut yourself off from your kith and kin."
+
+Rossett was of the same opinion.  The General agreed to a private
+engagement.  Guy gave his betrothed a beautiful ring which she did not
+dare openly to display.  She looked at it several times a day, and
+kissed it every night before she went to sleep.
+
+Guy had lost no time in approaching his father, and the Earl had
+received the news in the worst spirit.  He had stormed, and broken out
+into one of his furious, ungovernable rages.
+
+"You are simply an idiot.  With my influence with the Government, there
+is no knowing where I can push you to."  He seemed to take it for
+granted that his son could not help himself.  "You must marry a woman in
+your own class, a woman who can help you in your career.  And then you
+propose to me some obscure chit of a girl, who lives in a cottage at
+Eastbourne."
+
+Guy argued calmly that Isobel was a lady, and of good family.  Certainly
+her father was not a rich man, this much he had to admit.
+
+The Earl would not listen to reason.  He brushed aside all his son's
+pleadings.  He recovered from his first rage, but he wound up the
+discussion in a voice of deadly calm.
+
+"You can do as you choose, Guy.  You are quite independent, and I
+daresay if you married a shop girl it would make no difference to your
+aunt.  But please understand this.  From the day you make Isobel Clandon
+your wife, all is over between us.  I wash my hands of you.  Not a penny
+of my money, not an atom of my influence.  You understand."
+
+"I quite understand, sir.  You force me to choose between yourself and
+Isobel.  Well, if you persist in your determination, I shall choose
+Isobel.  But I am in hopes you will change your mind."
+
+"Never," snapped out the Earl viciously.  "Go to the devil your own way,
+as soon as you like.  Fancy a manlike you being caught by a baby face."
+But Guy smiled to himself.  Lord Saxham was a very obstinate man, also a
+very irritable one.  But his bark was worse than his bite.  He had often
+climbed down before.  And there was Lady Mary to be reckoned with, who,
+as a rule, could twist her father round her little finger, even if the
+process involved some time.
+
+Lord Saxham betook himself next day to the all-powerful Mr Greatorex.
+He hinted to that impassive gentleman that he wanted to get his son
+abroad.  Mr Greatorex elevated his finely arched eyebrows.  "The usual
+thing, I suppose?  An entanglement of some sort?"
+
+"Wants to marry a woman who will ruin his career," answered the Earl
+tersely.
+
+"A chorus-girl or something of that sort?" queried Greatorex.  He knew
+that Guy Rossett had mixed in a somewhat fast set, and was prepared to
+expect the worst of him.  "Or, perhaps, a doubtful widow?"  He had heard
+rumours of him and Violet Hargrave.
+
+Lord Saxham shook his head.  "No, neither; but just as bad from my point
+of view.  A girl, technically a lady, but no family to speak of, no
+fortune.  He'd marry for love, and tire of her in six months, misery for
+her as well as for him."
+
+The Honourable Rupert Greatorex was the scion of a very ancient family
+himself.  He had a proper detestation of mesalliances.
+
+"I will do my best," he said cordially.  "He shall have the first thing
+going."
+
+He had watched the career of young Rossett, as he had watched the career
+of every young man in the Foreign Office.  Guy had not shown himself, up
+to the present, very zealous.  He was more inclined to play than to
+work, and he foregathered with some very queer people.
+
+But he did not lack brains.  From some of the strange people with whom
+he associated, he had gleaned some rather valuable information which he
+had placed at Mr Greatorex's disposal.
+
+If he was sent to Spain, he might turn out a useful member of the vast
+diplomatic corps, and he would be separated from this charming young
+woman, of no family to speak of, and no fortune.  And Greatorex would be
+obliging a staunch supporter of the Government.  Hence the appointment
+which Guy fondly believed he had secured through his own merits.
+
+While his father was scheming to thwart what he considered his son's
+ill-advised wooing, Guy had enlisted Mary for an ally.
+
+Mary, the friend of all true lovers, only asked two questions.  First,
+Was she a lady?  Second, Were they quite sure they really loved each
+other?
+
+Her brother was able to answer both questions in the affirmative.  And
+she was sure, this time, he was in earnest.  She had been the recipient
+of previous confidences, hence a little caution on her part.
+
+"I should like to meet her, and judge for myself," said Mary decidedly.
+She knew, of course, of her father's obstinate refusal to entertain the
+idea.  She would like to meet Isobel, to be sure if she was justified in
+opposing the Earl.  For Mary was, above all things, conscientious.  She
+adored Guy, but she also loved her father, and she had a duty towards
+him.  She must be certain that Isobel was worthy, no mere adventuress,
+luring a sorely love-stricken man.
+
+Guy unfolded his cunning little plan.
+
+"Run up to London one day for some shopping.  I'll get up Isobel and her
+father, and we can all lunch together.  Where shall we go?  The Ritz for
+preference, but we should meet too many people we knew, and it might get
+to the Governor's ears.  We'll lunch at the Savoy."
+
+So that was arranged.  There came that delightful day when the General
+and his daughter travelled up from Eastbourne, and met Guy and his
+sister in the vestibule of the famous London restaurant.
+
+Isobel was dreadfully nervous, but quite excitedly happy.  What a lovely
+new life!  The tepid gaieties of Eastbourne paled their ineffectual
+fires in comparison with the present festivity.
+
+The two women took to each other at once.  It did not take the shrewd
+Mary long to discover that this beautiful girl was genuinely in love
+with the equally good-looking Guy, that here was no artful and designing
+maiden.
+
+The General, simple and dignified, made an equally good impression upon
+her.  In manner and bearing he was the true type of aristocrat, as much
+so as Lord Saxham himself.  Fortunately for others, he lacked the Earl's
+somewhat explosive qualities.
+
+They lingered in the lounge some time after lunch, and here the two
+women had a little private chat together, with the view of cementing
+their acquaintance.
+
+Mary promised to be their friend, and to use all her influence to wear
+down her father's opposition.
+
+Isobel thanked her warmly.  "It seems an unkind thing to say," she
+added, at the conclusion of her little outburst of gratitude.  "But I
+almost wish that Guy were a poor man."
+
+Mary looked at her questioningly; she did not, for the moment, catch the
+drift of her thoughts.
+
+"There couldn't, then, be all this fuss and trouble," explained Isobel,
+with a little catch in her voice.  "People wouldn't be able to think
+that I had run after him, they would know I only cared for him for
+himself.  Now, whatever happens, they will always think the worst of
+me."
+
+Mary whispered back the consoling answer, "There are two people who will
+never think that, myself and Guy."
+
+The happy hours passed.  They all saw Mary off by her train, and a
+little later the General and his daughter went back to Eastbourne.
+
+There were many delightful days to follow, days when Guy ran down, dined
+with the General, and put up for the night at the "Queen's."
+
+And then the time drew near for Guy to take up his new post, to leave
+London for Madrid.  Still, things were not any further advanced.  In
+spite of Lady Mary's powerful and persistent advocacy, the Earl remained
+as obdurate as ever.  If Guy insisted upon making Isobel Clandon his
+wife, all friendly relations between father and son would be suspended.
+
+On the night preceding the young diplomatist's departure, there was a
+farewell dinner, this time at a less public restaurant than the Savoy.
+The party was the same, Guy and his sister, Isobel and her father.
+
+Lady Mary would have to stay the night in London.  This she had arranged
+to do with an old girl friend, now married, Lady May Brendon.
+
+The Earl, with that uncanny sense which distinguishes some people,
+suddenly had an inkling of the truth.  Guy had said good-bye to them the
+day before.  "I believe it's all a blind," he burst out angrily, a few
+minutes before Mary's departure.  "You may be staying with May Brendon
+for the night, but she is not the reason of your visit.  You are going
+to meet that wretched girl."
+
+Mary could never bring herself to tell a lie.  She had already admitted
+she had made the acquaintance of Isobel Clandon, and had taken a great
+liking to her.
+
+"To tell the truth, I am.  Guy is giving a dinner to-night, in order to
+bid her farewell.  It is only right he should have the support of some
+member of his family."
+
+"You deliberately go against my wishes," thundered her father, in his
+most irate tones.
+
+"In this instance, I fear I must," replied his daughter very quietly and
+firmly.  "I love you very dearly, but I love Guy too.  He has chosen for
+himself, and in my opinion he has chosen wisely."
+
+"I love Guy too," said the Earl in a less aggressive tone.  "I would
+like also to see him happy.  But a man in his position must marry
+according to the traditions of his family.  You are a weak
+sentimentalist, Mary."
+
+A rather sad smile crept over the sweet face.
+
+"Perhaps I am, too much for my own peace of mind.  But, what I do feel
+strongly is this--you have no right to dictate to Guy in this matter.
+He is a second son, he is independent of you.  With Ticehurst, it may be
+different.  He has to transmit the family honours, to maintain the
+family traditions as you call them.  In his case, interference may be
+justifiable.  In Guy's case, I say emphatically not."  The Earl began to
+splutter again.  "My word, the world is coming to something.  You talk
+as if a father had no right, no authority over his children.  Look what
+I have done for him.  I wrung this appointment from Greatorex, with my
+own personal influence."
+
+Lady Mary laid a light, cool kiss upon his inflamed cheek.
+
+"Dearest father, do try and be just for once.  You did not get this
+appointment solely for Guy's benefit.  You know you don't care a straw
+whether he succeeds in his profession.  Your real motive was to drive
+him out of England, so that he should be separated from Isobel Clandon."
+
+This was too much for Lord Saxham.  He burst into volcanic language,
+inveighing against ungrateful sons and undutiful daughters, and stamped
+from the room in a blind rage.
+
+Lady Mary smiled a little when he left.  How many of these domestic
+storms had she witnessed!  Her father would give way in the end.  But
+there would be a long period of waiting.  She got into the car, and
+drove to the railway station.
+
+The dinner-party was a great success, even if it was slightly overcast
+with the sadness of farewell.  Two people alone can be quite comfortably
+sad; there is a luxury in woe.  But melancholy cannot be permanently
+maintained amongst four persons.  The lovers would not see each other
+for some time, but, as Mary cheerfully reminded them, Madrid was not
+quite as far as the Antipodes, and they could write to each other every
+day, if they wished.
+
+Half-way through the meal, two men entered and took their seats at a
+small adjoining table; they were both in evening dress.  One was a tall,
+slim Englishman of the well-groomed type.  His companion was short and
+swarthy, evidently a foreigner.
+
+Isobel was the first to observe them.  She leaned across the table, and
+addressed the General in a low voice.
+
+"Maurice has just come in, father.  Just there, on your left, with a
+foreign-looking man."
+
+The General looked in the direction indicated, and caught the eye of the
+tall young man, who rose, and advanced hesitatingly to their table.
+
+He shook hands with Isobel and her father.  The General effected a hasty
+introduction.
+
+"My nephew, Mr Farquhar, Lady Mary Rossett, Mr Rossett."
+
+Lady Mary bowed.  Guy half rose and bowed.  He felt a little bit
+churlish.  He was of a very jealous disposition.  He fancied Isobel's
+reception of her cousin was perhaps a little too cordial.  Her smile was
+very welcoming, as she murmured, "Fancy meeting you here, Maurice."
+
+Farquhar looked at the young diplomatist steadily, as if he were trying
+to recall a memory.  Then he recollected.
+
+"Rossett, Guy Rossett, of course, I remember you now perfectly.  You
+were with me at Harrow for one term.  You came into Brogden's House just
+as I was leaving."
+
+And then Guy remembered too.  "Of course, I recollect now.  I thought
+your face was familiar to me.  You were the head of the house, and I was
+your fag.  A graceless little cub, I fancy."
+
+Farquhar laughed genially.  "No, I fancy you were an awful decent little
+chap while I was there.  I can't vouch for you after my restraining
+influence was removed."
+
+There was a little more conversation, and then Mr Farquhar returned to
+his foreign friend.
+
+"Who the deuce has he got with him?" growled the General, almost under
+his breath.  "Maurice is an awfully clever fellow, and they say is one
+of the most rising members of the junior bar, but he is awfully fond of
+Bohemian society.  That long-haired chap he has got with him.  Well, he
+looks like an anarchist."
+
+Guy Rossett laughed.  "I fancy I know who he is, General; in the Foreign
+Office, like your nephew, we get to know some queer people.  He is a
+Spaniard by birth, but English by adoption.  He is a well-known
+journalist in Fleet Street.  But he is by no means an anarchist; he is
+dead against them."
+
+The General ruminated.  He was the most insular of insular Britons.  He
+hated all persons of other nations.  It annoyed him that his nephew
+should be in the company of this long-haired foreigner.
+
+"It is time this old country of ours closed its doors to this kind of
+gentry," he said, in a decided voice, as he drained his glass of
+champagne.
+
+Lady Mary smiled.  How very much he resembled her own father.  The same
+obstinate views, with, at bottom, the same kind heart.
+
+The next morning, the little party of three saw the young diplomatist
+off at the station.  Guy held his sweetheart very close when he gave her
+his farewell kiss.
+
+"I say, dearest, you will write every day, won't you?"
+
+And Isobel nodded her dark head.
+
+"Of course, dear, pages and pages."
+
+"And I say, that good-looking cousin of yours we met last night!  He has
+never made love to you, has he?"
+
+Isobel laughed gaily.  "Dear old Maurice!  Why he used to carry me about
+when I was a baby.  And dad and I are awfully fond of him.  He is just a
+big, dear elder brother."
+
+"I don't quite know that I like a big, dear elder brother, when he
+happens to be a cousin," replied Guy, a little grimly.
+
+Isobel smiled her most delightful smile.
+
+"Oh, Guy, I believe you are really jealous, and of poor old Maurice, of
+all people.  My dear boy, he only lives for his work; he is a barrister,
+you know, and is made up of parchment."
+
+"He looked very human when he shook hands with you," remarked Guy drily.
+"I fancy there's not much parchment where you are concerned."
+
+"Silly boy, to even think of such things.  And what about me, when you
+get to Madrid?  I am told the Spanish ladies are very fascinating.  What
+chance shall I have against them."
+
+So she turned the tables on Guy, and he had to defend himself against
+disloyalty in the future.
+
+Then the train steamed off.  With a hearty handshake from the General,
+with the kisses of his sweetheart and sister warm upon his lips and his
+cheeks, Guy Rossett set out on his journey to Spain.  Little could he
+foresee the adventures that were in store for him.
+
+CHAPTER FOUR.
+
+"And you think mischief is brewing, eh?"
+
+The speaker was Maurice Farquhar.  The man he addressed was Andres
+Moreno, the black-browed Spaniard who had dined with him on the previous
+evening at the restaurant where they had met Guy Rossett and his party.
+
+Maurice, a member of the junior bar, with a daily increasing practice,
+rented a charming suite of rooms in one of the most cloistered courts of
+the Temple.  Certainly, this suite was on the top floor, and it was a
+stiff climb up those stairs.  But Maurice was young and healthy, and the
+ascent of those few steep stairs did not trouble him in the least.
+
+Apart from his own special legal business, which absorbed his best
+faculties, he was a man of many interests.  During the lean years, when
+he had waited for briefs, he had supplemented his modest patrimony by
+journalism.  He became a somewhat well-known figure in Fleet Street,
+specialising more or less upon foreign politics.
+
+Then, when the briefs began to flow in, he had gradually dropped
+journalism.  Now and again, at the earnest request of a persistent
+editor, he would write an article or a letter on some burning question,
+in which he could display his particular knowledge of affairs.
+
+In those old journalistic days, happy, careless days, when a dinner at
+the old "Cheshire Cheese" was accounted something of a luxury, when he
+never entered the portals of the Ritz or Carlton, save as the guest of
+some rich friend or relation, he had struck up a great comradeship with
+Andres Moreno, son of a Spanish father and an English mother, an adroit
+and clever journalist, who could turn his hand to anything.
+
+Nothing came amiss to Moreno; he was the handy man of journalism.  He
+could write a most flamboyant description of a fashionable bazaar.  He
+could, in a sufficiently well-paid article, penetrate the subtle schemes
+of European monarchs and statesmen.
+
+His knowledge of London and every other foreign capital was
+illuminating.  He knew every prominent detective, he enjoyed the
+acquaintance of not a few members of the criminal classes.  He was
+hail-fellow-well-met with staunch monarchists and avowed anarchists.
+But it was always difficult with this man, who had friends in so many
+camps, to discover what were his real opinions.
+
+Maurice who, perhaps, knew him better than anybody, on the mental side,
+always declared that he had no fixed opinions.
+
+"When you are with the good old-fashioned Tory," he had said once to him
+laughingly, "you are all for King and Church and State and good
+Government.  When you are with the anarchist, your sympathies go with
+the poor devils who have got nothing, and want to blow up everybody, in
+the hopes of getting a bit out of the wreck."
+
+And Moreno, in the same jocular spirit, had admitted there was a certain
+element of truth in the description.
+
+"I am so infernally sympathetic, you know, Farquhar.  I am like a straw
+blown by the wind.  Any man who can talk to me earnestly for five
+minutes makes me see eye to eye with him.  When I have left him, when
+the magnetism of his presence is removed, the cold fit succeeds, and I
+see with the eye of Andres Moreno.  On the whole, I think I may say I am
+on the side of law and order."
+
+And Farquhar had replied in the same half-jocular vein.  "Better stick
+on that side, old man.  Otherwise they will end by taking from you even
+that little which you have."
+
+Since those days of early friendship, the two men had prospered
+exceedingly.  Moreno was a very highly paid journalist.  Farquhar was
+one of the rising members of the junior bar.
+
+The young barrister repeated his question.
+
+"And you think mischief is brewing, eh?"  Moreno raised himself from
+what appeared to be a deep reverie.  It was a peculiarity of the man
+that suddenly he would relapse into deep meditation, and for the moment
+seem oblivious of what was going on around him.  Then, in a flash, his
+keen intellect would assert itself, and he would pick up, in a very easy
+fashion the dropped threads of the previous conversation.
+
+"Very serious mischief, old man," he said, in his deep, rather husky
+tones.  He spoke English perfectly, by the way, without the slightest
+trace of foreign accent.  As a matter of fact, he had been born and bred
+in the country of his mother.
+
+"Is it a great secret?" questioned Farquhar.
+
+Moreno looked at him kindly.  He was very greatly attached to this quiet
+Englishman, who had taken him by the hand in those early days when some
+of the brethren of the pen had regarded him as an outsider, and shown
+their dislike very plainly.
+
+"It is to everybody else, but not to you, my old and tried friend.  I
+can trust you not to suck another man's brains.  Besides, you are out of
+the business now.  Yes, there are great things going on, in Madrid,
+Barcelona and Seville.  There are also great things going on in a little
+corner in London, I can assure you."
+
+Farquhar lifted his eyebrows, but he made no comment.  Moreno would talk
+when it pleased him.
+
+The Spaniard laughed softly, and leaned back in his chair.  He was a man
+of deep and subtle humour, and was continually smiling at the ironies
+and incongruities of life.
+
+"I am going to astonish you now, my good Maurice.  To-morrow night I am
+going to be inducted as a member of an anarchist society in Soho."
+
+Farquhar, disturbed in his well-balanced mind, gave a violent start.
+
+"Are you mad, Andres?  Have you any idea of what you will commit
+yourself to?"
+
+Moreno shrugged his broad shoulders indifferently.
+
+"I shall know, and size it all up the day after to-morrow; I am a
+soldier of fortune, my friend.  I am an enterprising journalist--
+anything for sensation, anything for `copy.'  I shall put my anarchist
+friends to good use."
+
+"And they will kill you while you are doing it, or after you have done
+it," said Farquhar grimly.
+
+"You do not pay a very high compliment to my intelligence, my friend.  I
+think I may say that I am clever.  Anarchists are very stupid people.
+They will suspect each other long before they suspect Andres Moreno."
+
+He was a small man, but he looked quite important as he made this boast.
+Whatever his failings, a want of confidence in himself was not one of
+them.  But Farquhar still appeared dubious.
+
+"I was a little doubtful till last night when I saw your friends at the
+restaurant," went on Moreno, in his slightly husky voice.  "You did not
+introduce me, there was no opportunity for that.  I recognised one of
+them, Guy Rossett, who, I take it, is the fiance of that charming young
+lady who, you say, is your cousin."
+
+Farquhar frowned a little.  How quick these foreigners were to guess
+things.
+
+"I have no idea," he said stiffly.  "General Clandon is my uncle, and I
+have been on very intimate terms with him and his family since I was a
+child.  If there were any engagement, I think I should have been
+informed."
+
+Moreno noticed the frown, the stiffness in the tone.  He went on
+smoothly.
+
+"I may be jumping at conclusions rather too hastily, but I will tell you
+how I arrived at them.  I happen to know that Guy Rossett is appointed
+to the Embassy at Madrid.  With his sister, he dines with this charming
+girl and a man, obviously her father.  It looks to me like a farewell
+dinner, and at a restaurant which is excellent, but certainly not
+fashionable.  They wanted to escape observation, otherwise a man in
+Rossett's position, and he was certainly the host, would have been at
+the Ritz."
+
+"And what do you deduce from these profound observations, worthy of
+Sherlock Holmes himself?" asked Farquhar a little testily.
+
+Moreno answered slowly.  He could see that his friend was troubled, but
+he had gone too far to recede.
+
+"I should say there was a secret understanding between the young people,
+approved of by the girl's father, and the man's sister.  Probably they
+are still waiting for the Earl's consent to an open engagement."
+
+Farquhar, to hide his agitation, swallowed his whiskey and soda in one
+draught, and chewed viciously at the end of his cigar.
+
+"You may be right," he said, speaking with forced calm.  "Well, let us
+get back to your anarchists.  What has made you join them?"
+
+Moreno reflected a moment before he spoke.
+
+"I happen to know that young Rossett was in possession of some very
+exclusive information about this particular plot.  That is one of the
+reasons why he has been sent to Spain."
+
+"And where do you come in?" questioned Farquhar.
+
+Moreno smiled.  "It is as much curiosity as anything.  The anarchists
+know that Rossett knows a good deal about them.  Now, I want to find out
+how they are going to act when Rossett finds himself in Madrid, you
+see."
+
+"And you'll find it out before you are many hours older, cunning old
+devil that you are," said Farquhar, with an appreciative smile.  "Well,
+let me know how you get on.  Isobel Clandon is my cousin, and I can't
+help feeling interested in all this, especially if what you suggest
+about her and Rossett is true."
+
+When Moreno had left, the ambitious young barrister sat thinking deeply.
+He had loved his cousin for years, not perhaps with any great
+overmastering passion, but with that steady affection which might be
+expected from a man of his grave and cautious temperament.
+
+He was prepared to speak when the time was ripe, when his prospects and
+circumstances permitted him to offer Isobel a proper home.  Moreno's
+words troubled him, and he had an uneasy suspicion that the Spaniard,
+with his swift intelligence, had accurately gauged the situation.  The
+fruit which might have been his for the mere stretching out of the
+hand--had it been plucked by somebody more impetuous, more energetic
+than himself?
+
+This he must learn as soon as possible.  Moreno's words had suddenly
+roused him to action.  He was now blaming in his mind, those very traits
+on which he had been wont to pride himself, his scrupulousness, his
+excessive caution.
+
+He had always thought that Isobel liked him, that she would not be
+reluctant to entertain his advances, when he had judged the time was
+right to make them.
+
+And, of course, he had been a fool.  He had not looked at the position
+from the girl's point of view.  A girl, however much she may be inclined
+towards a man, is not disposed to wait indefinitely while he is making
+up his mind, nicely balancing pros and cons.
+
+He had never thought of anybody else for his wife.  But he had reckoned
+too surely on the fact that she was waiting quietly in that little home
+at Eastbourne, till he chose to make love to her.
+
+He wired to General Clandon the next morning, explaining that he had a
+couple of days' leisure; might he run down?  There came back the cordial
+reply, "Come at once.  Delighted."
+
+Truth to tell, the General was both proud and fond of his nephew, the
+son of his favourite sister.  He might have thought at times that the
+young man was a little too grave and serious for his years, he had
+always seemed singularly free from the follies of youth.  But he had the
+greatest respect for his sterling qualities, for his high principles and
+character.
+
+Father and daughter met him at the station.  Isobel liked him very much.
+There was a time when liking might have been converted into a warmer
+feeling.  But, speaking in vulgar parlance, Maurice had failed through
+his over-scrupulousness, his too nice weighing of possibilities and
+probabilities, to strike while the iron was hot.
+
+And then Guy Rossett, ardent, impetuous, the beau ideal of a lover, had
+carried her off her feet, and her cousin was hardly a memory, so much
+did she live in the radiance of the present.
+
+He had a most dainty dinner.  Isobel was a wonderful housekeeper, and
+could accomplish wonders on a very limited income.  Maurice, his desire
+sharpened by his forebodings, thought what a perfect wife she would
+make, uniting the decorative with the practical.
+
+After dinner she left the men alone to their wine and cigars.  Farquhar
+was not long in coming to the point.  It was typical of his rather staid
+and old-fashioned way of regarding things that, even in the delicate
+matter of love, the correct method was to approach the parent first.
+
+"I wonder, uncle, if you have ever thought of me in the light of a
+future son-in-law?"
+
+The General looked a little embarrassed.  Not very long ago, that aspect
+of his nephew had presented itself to him, and the prospect was not
+unpleasing.  He had a shrewd notion that Maurice was very attached to
+his pretty cousin, and was marking time for some quite honourable and
+justifiable reasons.
+
+Of Isobel he was not at all sure.  Maurice had every good quality from a
+man's point of view, but he was not quite the stuff out of which
+romantic and compelling lovers are made.  And her father was certain
+that Isobel was full of romance.
+
+The General answered slowly, and with a caution worthy of Maurice
+himself.  "I might have thought about it some time ago, my boy.  I
+fancied then that you were greatly attached.  Let me see, it was some
+three or four years ago that I formed that opinion, I think."
+
+"Yes," said Maurice, speaking with a quiet bitterness.  "I suppose it
+was about then that I showed my feelings, as far as I am capable of
+showing them, plainly.  But there were reasons why I did not speak then,
+reasons that I still think good ones."
+
+"I am sure of that, my dear boy," said the uncle kindly.  He guessed now
+the reason of this visit, that sudden telegram.
+
+"At that time I was making headway, it is true, but my position was by
+no means assured.  You know the smallness of my patrimony, and what I
+earned outside was inconsiderable.  I did not feel justified in asking a
+girl to wait, on the chance of prospects that might never come to
+fruition."
+
+"Quite right, quite honourable!" murmured the poor General, dreading the
+inevitable end of this discourse.  Maurice was stating the case, rather
+as if he were addressing a jury, but there was no doubt he meant
+business.  Even a man of his cautious temperament could now safely allow
+himself the luxury of matrimony, that was evident from this preamble.
+
+"It has always been my one thought to marry Isobel, assuming that she
+would have me, the moment I was in a position to take a wife.  That
+moment has now arrived; I have no fears of the future.  The question
+arises, am I too late?"
+
+The General was terribly embarrassed by this direct question.  He was a
+most straightforward man, he loathed subterfuge.
+
+But what was he to do?  The engagement of his daughter to Guy Rossett
+was a secret one.  He was, in honour bound, to give neither of them
+away.
+
+He temporised weakly.  "Have you spoken to Isobel about this?"
+
+"No," came the answer.  "I thought it was right to approach you first."
+
+"Exactly, exactly," stammered the poor father.  "Very right and proper,
+of course.  But you had better put it to Isobel, and see what she says.
+Of course, you understand there is no opposition on my part."
+
+Farquhar looked at him keenly.  Yes, Moreno's suspicions were justified.
+There was a secret engagement.  The General had thrown the onus on his
+daughter.  She could tell as much or as little as she pleased.
+
+"Thanks," he said quietly.  "I will speak to Isobel to-morrow morning."
+
+The next day, in a little sheltered arbour in the not too extensive
+garden, he asked his cousin to marry him.  He explained to her, as he
+had explained to her father, the reasons which had held him back.
+
+She listened to him with composure.  She was dimly aware that, a few
+years ago, this declaration of love would have set her cheeks aflame,
+her heart beating.  To-day, it left her regretful, but cold.
+
+"I am dreadfully sorry, Maurice.  I am very, very fond of you, but not
+in that way.  I look upon you as a brother, a very dear brother."
+
+There was decision and finality in the low, gentle tones.  It was a
+bitter disappointment.  He had always fancied in his masculine optimism
+that Isobel was waiting ready to fall into his arms, when he had made up
+his mind to ask her.
+
+It was a bitter disappointment, but he bore it with his usual stoicism.
+Ambition was the greater factor in his life; love would always play a
+subordinate part.  Still, Isobel's refusal had taken something away that
+could never be replaced.
+
+There was a long pause.  He was the first to break the silence.
+
+"Your affections are engaged.  You are in love with somebody else?"
+
+A vivid flush overspread the fair face.  "It is quite true, I love
+somebody else."
+
+"The man you were dining with, Guy Rossett?" replied Farquhar quietly.
+
+"Ah, you have guessed!  But it is quite a secret.  My father knows.  His
+sister knows.  His father is obstinate and prejudiced; he wants him to
+marry a woman in his own world.  We are waiting for his consent."
+
+"I quite understand," said Farquhar gloomily.  "I am too late, I can
+see.  Honestly, Isobel, had I asked you, say, a year ago, would your
+answer have been different?"
+
+Her frank and candid gaze met his steadfast glance.  "I fancy I should
+have said yes, Maurice.  But I am not certain it would have been real
+love; you see, I have known so few men.  Guy has revealed a new world to
+me."
+
+Farquhar sighed.  He was eloquent enough in the courts, but he was dumb
+in the presence of women.  This handsome young diplomatist had spoken to
+her in a language that she readily understood.
+
+He silently said good-bye to his dream, the fair dream of the future
+which was to be glorified by Isobel Clandon's gracious presence.
+
+"So that is all over.  Well, Isobel, I hope you will always allow me to
+be your very good friend."  She reached out her hand impulsively and
+laid it on his.
+
+"Oh, yes, please, Maurice.  You will always be a dear, kind brother,
+won't you?"
+
+"Perhaps some day I may be able to help you.  I have just learned there
+is some danger threatening Guy Rossett."
+
+Her face blanched.  She turned to him an imploring glance.
+
+"Danger threatening Guy.  Oh, please tell me, quickly."
+
+With a bitter pang, he realised in that anguished utterance a full sense
+of the love which he had lost, of the youthful heart which he had
+allowed another man to capture.
+
+In a few brief sentences, he told her what Moreno had related to him.
+
+CHAPTER FIVE.
+
+At the period at which this story opens, there stood in Gerrard Street,
+Soho, a small, unpretentious restaurant, frequented almost exclusively
+by foreigners.  Over the front was written the name of Maceda.
+
+Luis Maceda, a tall, grave man of dignified aspect, with carefully
+trimmed beard and moustache, was the proprietor.  He was a Spaniard,
+with the suave and courteous manners of that picturesque nation.  The
+majority of his customers were his compatriots.  The few Englishmen who
+found their way there spoke highly of him and the cuisine.  At the same
+time, one or two of the prominent officials of the Secret Service kept a
+wary eye upon Maceda and his friends.
+
+It was about half-past six on the evening following the interview
+between Moreno and Farquhar that Maceda, grave, upright, and dignified,
+looking younger than his fifty years, stood near the entrance door of
+the small restaurant, awaiting the arrival of early diners.
+
+He was one of the old-fashioned type of restaurant keepers who kept a
+vigilant eye on his subordinates, went round to every table, inquiring
+of his patrons if they were well served.  In short, he made his
+customers his friends.
+
+Through the open doors entered Andres Moreno.  He lunched and dined at a
+dozen different places, but usually twice a week he went to Maceda's.
+The cuisine was French, to suit all tastes, but there were always some
+special Spanish dishes, to oblige those who were still Spaniards at
+heart.
+
+The pair were old friends.  Moreno extended his hand.
+
+"How goes it, Maceda?  But it always goes well with you.  You look after
+your patrons so well."
+
+For a few moments the two men conversed in Spanish, which Moreno,
+through his father, could speak perfectly.  Then, after a pause, the
+journalist spoke a single word--it was a password, that Maceda
+understood instantly.
+
+A sudden light came into the proprietor's eyes.  He smiled genially, but
+gravely, as was his wont.
+
+"So you are with us, at last," he said.  "A thousand welcomes, my
+friend.  We want men like you.  I was told there would be a new member
+to-night, but the name was not divulged.  This way."
+
+The restaurant keeper led him up a narrow staircase--the house was a
+very old one--to a big room on the second floor.  A long table stood in
+the middle of the apartment, on which were set bowls of flowers and
+dishes of fruit.  Moreno looked around gratefully.  As far as creature
+comforts went, he was going to have a pleasant evening.  Maceda was
+evidently going to do his best.
+
+Maceda pointed to a little side-room.
+
+"It is there the initiation will be performed at seven.  At half-past,
+dinner will be served.  After dinner, the business of the meeting will
+take place.  You are a bit early.  I know this much, that you are here
+on the introduction of Emilio Lucue."
+
+"Quite right," answered Moreno easily.  "It was Lucue who persuaded me
+to the right way."
+
+Maceda raised his hands in admiration at the mention of that name.
+
+"Ah, what a man, what a genius!" he cried in fervent tones.  "If our
+cause ever triumphs, if the world-wide revolution is ever brought
+about--and sometimes, my friend, I feel very disheartened--it is men
+like Lucue who will make it a possibility."
+
+"Trust to Lucue," answered Moreno, in his easy way.  "If he can't do it,
+nobody can."
+
+Maceda moved towards the door.  "Excuse me that I can no longer keep you
+company.  But business is business, you know.  I must be there to
+welcome my patrons.  Maceda's restaurant is nothing without Maceda.  You
+know that.  My subordinates are good, and do their best, but it is my
+personality that keeps the thing going.  If I am away for ten minutes,
+everything hangs fire."  Moreno waved a cheerful hand at him.
+
+"Do not stand upon ceremony, my good old friend.  I shall be quite happy
+here till the others arrive.  No doubt I shall see you later."
+
+The proprietor walked to the door, with his long, slow stride.
+
+"The three will be here at seven to initiate you.  I shall run up for a
+few moments now and again during the dinner.  The two men who will wait
+upon you are, of course, members of our society.  I shall hope to be
+present, if only for a brief space, at the meeting.  Once again, a
+thousand welcomes."
+
+Maceda shut the door carefully.  Moreno was left alone, in the long,
+narrow room.  He gave vent to a low whistle, when Maceda was out of
+earshot.
+
+"The old boy takes it very seriously," so ran his reflections.  "I
+suppose they will all take it quite as seriously.  Anyway, they intend
+to do themselves well.  I wonder where the money comes from?  And I
+further wonder if I shall meet anybody whom one would the least expect
+to find in such a venture."
+
+On the stroke of seven Lucue arrived, a fine, handsome man of imposing
+presence.  He was accompanied by two men, one an Italian, the other a
+Russian.  It was evidently going to be a meeting of many nations.
+
+Lucue greeted the journalist with a friendly smile.  "Ah, my friend, you
+are before us.  That is a good sign.  I hope you do not feel nervous."
+
+Moreno answered truthfully that he did not.  The whole thing appealed
+greatly to his sense of humour.  Here were a dozen anarchists, meeting
+in a small restaurant in Soho, and pluming themselves upon the idea
+that, from their obscure vantage-ground, they could blow up the world
+into fragments and overpower the forces of law and order, to bring it
+into accordance with their wild dreams.
+
+The four men went into the ante-room.  Here the solemn rights of
+initiation were performed with perfect seriousness.  Afterwards, when he
+reflected on the subject, Moreno remembered that he had taken some very
+blood-curdling oaths.
+
+His gay and easy temperament was not greatly affected by the fact.  He
+had been in the pay of the Secret Service before; he was in its pay now.
+A man must take risks, if he wanted to make a good living.  Besides, he
+loved adventure.  If the apparently genial Lucue ever had cause to
+suspect him, then Lucue would stick a knife into his ribs without the
+slightest compunction.  But he felt sure he was the cleverer of the two,
+and that Lucue would suspect every member of the fraternity before
+himself.
+
+The somewhat tedious initiation over, the four men went into the
+dining-room.  Most of the members had arrived.  The two waiters were
+bringing up the soup.
+
+Moreno recognised with a start the portly form of Jackson, otherwise
+Juan Jaques, the moneylender of Dover Street.  Lucue had told him that
+the common language was French, in order to accommodate all
+nationalities.
+
+Moreno addressed him.  "I don't think you remember me, Mr Jackson.  I
+had the pleasure of introducing young Harry Mount Vernon to you some
+months ago, when he was wanting a little of the ready.  He has always
+spoken in the highest terms of you."  Mr Jackson, always suave and
+genial, bowed and smiled.  But it was evident he was searching the
+recesses of his memory.
+
+Moreno helped him out of his difficulty.
+
+"I am Andres Moreno, a Fleet Street journalist, who mixes with all sorts
+and conditions of men."
+
+"Ah, I remember now."  Jackson, to call him by his assumed name, shook
+him cordially by the hand.  "And so, you are one of us?"
+
+"Yes, very much so," replied Moreno quietly.
+
+"Our friend Lucue converted me to the good cause.  He is a wonderful
+man."
+
+Jackson repeated the enthusiasm of Maceda.
+
+"A genius, my dear friend, an absolute genius.  If the great cause
+triumphs, it will be due to him."  Another worshipper, thought Moreno,
+with a quiet, inward chuckle.  They were all certainly very serious,
+with a whole-hearted worship of their leader.
+
+The great leader looked round the room with his broad, genial smile.
+
+"All here, except the two ladies," he said.  "We must wait for the
+ladies.  It is their privilege to be late.  We must exercise patience."
+
+As he spoke, two women entered the room, one obviously a Frenchwoman,
+the other as obviously an Englishwoman.
+
+Jackson darted across the apartment, a somewhat grotesque figure, bowed
+to the foreigner, and shook the Englishwoman cordially by the hand.
+
+"Always late, my dear Violet," he said, "but better late than never."
+
+Then Lucue bustled up, and took the situation in hand.
+
+"Now, Jackson, you mustn't monopolise one of the two charming young
+women in the room.  I want my new friend, Moreno, to sit next his
+half-compatriot, because, as you know, although his father was Spanish,
+his mother was English."
+
+The pretty Englishwoman bowed, and they took their seats together at the
+flower and fruit-laden table.  Lucue, probably through inadvertence had
+not mentioned the woman's name.
+
+Moreno stole cautious glances at his companion.  She was certainly very
+charming to look at; her age he guessed at anything from five and twenty
+to thirty.  Where had he seen her before?  Her face was quite familiar
+to him.
+
+And then recollection came back to him.  A big bazaar in the Albert
+Hall, stalls with dozens of charming women.  And one particular stall
+where this particular woman was serving, and he had been struck with
+her, and inquired her name of a brother journalist, who was a great
+expert on the social side.  He turned to her, speaking in English.
+
+"Our good friend Lucue was rather perfunctory in his introduction.  He
+mentioned my name, but he did not give yours.  Am I not right in saying
+that I am speaking to Mrs Hargrave?"
+
+Violet Hargrave shot at him a glance that was slightly tinged with
+suspicion.
+
+"I think we had better talk in French, if you don't mind--it is the rule
+here.  It might annoy others if we didn't.  Where did you know me, and
+what do you know about me?"
+
+Moreno felt on sure ground at once.  He was dealing with a woman of the
+world.  In two minutes, he could put her at her ease.
+
+"I am a journalist, rather well-known in Fleet Street."
+
+"Yes, I know that," answered Violet a little impatiently.  "Lucue
+mentioned your name, and it is, as you say, a well-known one.  But you
+have not answered my question.  Where did you first know me?"
+
+Moreno explained the little incident of the Albert Hall Bazaar.
+
+"I see, then, you rather singled me out from the others," said Mrs
+Hargrave, and this time the glance was more coquettish than suspicious.
+"But I am more interested in this--what do you know about me?"
+
+Moreno put his cards on the table at once.
+
+"We journalists pick up a lot of odd information.  I know that you are
+an intimate friend of our friend Jackson, otherwise Juan Jaques, and one
+of us; and that to a certain extent you help him in his business, by
+introducing valuable clients."
+
+"Oh, you know that, do you?"  Mrs Hargrave's tone was quite friendly.
+She respected brains, and this dark-faced young Anglo-Spaniard was not
+only good-looking, but very clever.  "Tell me some more."
+
+"Well, I know that you still live in Mount Street, that you married Jack
+Hargrave, who was never supposed by his friends to have any visible
+means of subsistence.  Also that at one time, you were a great friend of
+Guy Rossett, the man who has just been appointed to Madrid."
+
+"Oh, then you know Guy Rossett?"
+
+"No," answered Moreno quietly.  "I don't move in such exalted circles.
+But I always hear of what is going on in high society, through my
+influential friends."
+
+She looked at him quizzically.  "Have you many influential friends?" she
+asked, with just a touch of sarcasm in her pleasant, low-pitched voice.
+
+A slight flush dyed Moreno's swarthy cheek at what he considered her
+impertinent question.
+
+"More perhaps than you would think possible," he answered stiffly.
+
+She read in his nettled tone that she had wounded his _amour propre_.
+She hastened to make amends.  She was always a little too prone to speak
+without reflection.
+
+"Oh please don't think I meant to be rude.  But we soldiers of fortune,
+and all of us here are that, are not likely to have many friends in high
+places."
+
+The journalist paid her back in her own coin.
+
+"Not real friends, of course.  But still, we swim about in many cross
+currents.  You yourself have a certain position in a certain section of
+what we might call semi-smart society."
+
+Violet Hargrave laughed good-humouredly.  She was liberal-minded in this
+respect, that she seldom resented a thrust at herself when she had been
+the aggressor.
+
+"Very neatly put.  I have no illusions about my actual position.  I am
+not sure that my particular circle is even semi-smart, except in its own
+estimation."
+
+So peace was restored between them, and they chatted gaily together
+during the progress of the meal.  She had taken a great liking to the
+brainy young journalist.  And Moreno, on his side, was forced to admit
+that she was a very attractive woman.
+
+The grave and dignified Maceda, looking more like a nobleman than the
+proprietor of an obscure restaurant, came up a few times, and talked in
+confidential whispers with the principal guests.  He chatted longest
+with Lucue and the handsome young Frenchwoman, Valerie Delmonte, who,
+Moreno learned afterwards, stood high in the councils and the estimation
+of the society.
+
+After dinner, the waiters withdrew, the men smoked, and the two ladies
+produced dainty cigarette cases.  Then the business of the evening
+began.
+
+The genial Lucue, who looked the least ferocious of anarchists, opened
+the proceedings.  He gave a brief but lucid survey of what was going on
+abroad, of the methods by which the great gospel of freedom was being
+spread in different capitals.
+
+The young Frenchwoman, Valerie Delmonte, who had dined well on the most
+expensive viands, delivered a fiery and passionate harangue against the
+great ones of the earth, the parasites and bloodsuckers who existed on
+the toil of their poorer brethren.
+
+Her speech roused the assembly to enthusiasm, Mr Jackson being
+particularly fervent in his applause.  No doubt, he believed himself to
+be a philanthropist, insomuch as he levied his exactions on the leisured
+classes; thus, in a measure, redressing the balance of human wrongs.
+
+Moreno applauded with hardly less fervour than the moneylender, and he
+was pleased to note that the eloquent Valerie shot a grateful glance at
+him.  He had already gained the confidence of Lucue.  He felt sure, from
+the reception accorded her, that she was only second to the great man
+himself.  If he could secure her good graces, his position would be
+safe.
+
+Some business, not of great importance, was discussed.  Certain projects
+were put to the vote.  On one subject, Lucue and Mademoiselle Valerie
+dissented from the majority.  Moreno decided with the two, and the
+majority reversed its verdict.
+
+Violet Hargrave was, perhaps, the least enthusiastic of the party.
+Truth to tell, she was studying the young journalist very intently.  He
+interested her greatly.
+
+The proceedings ended.  A meeting was arranged for next week at the same
+place, when two members of the brotherhood were expected to arrive from
+Barcelona with the latest reports of what was happening in Spain.
+
+After a little desultory chatting in groups, Maceda's guests prepared to
+depart.
+
+Moreno held out his hand to Mrs Hargrave.  He bore the air of a man who
+had thoroughly enjoyed himself, as in truth he had.
+
+"A most delightful evening.  I can only hope you will sit beside me next
+week.  But that I fear is too much to hope for.  I expect our good
+friend Lucue arranges these things with a sense of equity."
+
+Mrs Hargrave smiled.  "I expect next time he will put you next to
+Mademoiselle Delmonte."  Ignoring his outstretched hand, she added
+abruptly, "Are you doing anything after this?"
+
+"I was only going on to my club for an hour or two.  We journalists are
+not very early birds."
+
+Mrs Hargrave spoke with her most charming smile.  "Then get me a taxi,
+and drive with me to my flat in Mount Street.  I should like to have a
+little chat with you."
+
+Moreno was delighted to accompany her.  He was eager to know more of
+this fascinating and enigmatical woman.  He was puzzled by her.  How did
+she live; on what did she live?  Was she at heart an anarchist?  Or,
+sudden thought, was she playing the same game as himself?  He had
+noticed her lack of enthusiasm over the events of the evening.
+
+Arrived in Mount Street, she produced her latchkey, and ushered him into
+her luxurious flat, the abode of a well-off woman.  She turned into the
+drawing-room, and switched on the electric light.
+
+She threw her cloak on a chair and rang the bell.  When the maid
+appeared in answer, she ordered her to bring refreshment.
+
+She mixed a whiskey and soda for Moreno with her own slender dainty
+hands.  She mixed a very small portion for herself, to keep him company.
+
+"I very rarely take anything of this sort, just a glass of very light
+wine at lunch or dinner," she explained.  "But to-night is a somewhat
+exceptional one.  To your health, Mr Moreno.  I hope we may meet
+often."
+
+The journalist responded in suitable terms.  He was very attracted by
+her, but he was not quite sure that he desired a close acquaintance.  He
+had heard from his young friend Mount Vernon of her bridge parties, and
+the fact that people lost large sums of money there.  She was evidently
+of a most hospitable nature, but she might prove a very expensive
+hostess.
+
+They chatted for some time on different topics.  Then, after a brief
+space, she suddenly burst out with a question.
+
+"What do you know of Guy Rossett?"
+
+Moreno shrugged his shoulders.  "Next to nothing.  I only know what
+everybody knows, that he has been sent to Madrid."
+
+Question and answer followed swiftly.
+
+"Do you know why he has been sent to Madrid?"
+
+"No.  I suppose it is owing to his family influence."
+
+"Has Lucue told you nothing?"
+
+"Up to the present nothing."
+
+She looked at him keenly.  Was he fencing?  No, she felt sure he was
+speaking the truth.
+
+"Then I will tell you.  Guy Rossett is being sent to Spain because he
+has obtained some very important information about the brotherhood.
+They want him on the spot, as just now Madrid and Barcelona are two very
+active centres."
+
+Moreno leaned forward, and looked at her steadily.  He could not, at
+present, make up his mind about her.  She was an Englishwoman living in
+fairly luxurious conditions.  What had she in common with this anarchist
+crew.
+
+"Have you got any idea who gave him the information?"
+
+Violet Hargrave returned his keen glance with equal steadiness.
+
+"Not the slightest.  But there are always traitors in any association of
+this kind."
+
+"And when they are discovered, the penalty is death."  Moreno spoke
+quietly, but he felt an inward shiver.  After all, was he so certain he
+was going to outwit Lucue and his brother fanatics.
+
+"The penalty is death.  You have been initiated to-night, and you know
+that," was Violet Hargrave's answer.
+
+The journalist felt a little uneasy.  He had suspected her.  Did she, in
+turn, suspect him?  But he preserved an unbroken front.
+
+"They deserve it," he said, with unblushing audacity.
+
+Mrs Hargrave bent forward, and spoke with intensity.
+
+"Guy Rossett may prove very dangerous.  I think Lucue and Mademoiselle
+Delmonte, from the few words I have exchanged with them to-night, have
+resolved on a certain course of action."
+
+"Ah!"  The journalist also bent forward, in an attitude of simulated
+eagerness.
+
+When Mrs Hargrave spoke again, she looked a different woman.  Over her
+face came a hard, vindictive look.  The dainty, almost doll-like
+prettiness had disappeared.
+
+"Guy Rossett must be got out of the way, before he can do much
+mischief."
+
+And Moreno, with his swift intuition, at once grasped the situation.
+This slender, feminine thing, with her soft ways and graces, was a
+revengeful and scorned woman.  She had loved Rossett, and he had refused
+to accept her love.  He shuddered in his soul to think that the spirit
+of revenge could carry a woman to such lengths.
+
+But he had only to play his part.  It would never do to let her know
+that he suspected, or the tigress's claws would rend himself.
+
+"A regrettable but inexorable necessity," he said calmly.  "If Rossett
+menaces the schemes of the brotherhood, he must be got out of the way."
+
+CHAPTER SIX.
+
+"You got all this information from perfectly reliable sources, Rossett?"
+
+The question was asked by the Honourable Percy Stonehenge, His Majesty's
+Ambassador to the Spanish Court, as the two men sat together in the
+Ambassador's private room.
+
+"Perfectly reliable, sir.  I have given you in strict confidence the
+names of my informants.  They are not the sort of men who make
+mistakes."
+
+Mr Stonehenge, true type of the urbane and courteous diplomatist, a man
+of old family, knitted his brow, and pondered a little before he spoke
+again.
+
+"I had a private letter from Greatorex about this matter.  There is no
+doubt great activity everywhere, but especially in this country.  Well,
+the information you have collected is most valuable.  It will be given
+to the King and his advisers, and they must take the best measures they
+can."
+
+Stonehenge shook his head sadly, after a prolonged pause.  "Revolution,
+my dear fellow, is in the air all over Europe.  Even in our commonsense
+and law-abiding country, there are ominous growlings and mutterings.
+Everywhere, the proletariat is getting out of hand.  Sometimes I feel
+grateful that I am an old man, that what I dread is coming will not come
+in my time."
+
+Rossett assented gravely.  He was taking himself quite seriously now.
+His deep love for Isobel Clandon had purified him of light fancies.  His
+promotion to this post at Madrid had suggested to him that he might bid
+adieu to frivolous pursuits, and do a man's work in the world, prove
+himself a worthy citizen of that vast British Empire of which he was
+justly proud.
+
+Personally, he would have preferred Paris or Rome, or even Vienna.  But,
+at the same time, he was greatly attracted by Spain.
+
+A small nation now, it had once been a great one, attaining its zenith
+under the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.  It had produced great
+geniuses in the immortal domain of the arts--Cervantes, Lopez de Vega,
+Murillo.
+
+Once it had lain prostrate under the iron heel of the Conqueror.
+Napoleon, who had overrun all Europe, had subjugated the once invincible
+Spain, crushing her and governing her through the puppet King, his
+brother, Joseph Bonaparte.
+
+Then had come the time of liberation, and the thunder of the British
+guns, under the leadership of Wellington, had freed her from the foreign
+yoke.
+
+Rossett was very delighted with his chief, one of those sane men of
+affairs, a perfect aristocrat with just sufficient business instinct,
+who can safely be appointed to an important post.  A man who thought
+clearly, saw far ahead, and made few mistakes, a man at once calm,
+temperate, and equable.
+
+This Ambassador, on his side, had welcomed him warmly.  With the natural
+prejudice of his class, he always preferred his colleagues to come from
+the old governing families; they thought his thoughts, they spoke his
+language.  If sometimes they lacked a little in brains and initiative,
+they had a large balance on the right side in deportment and integrity,
+two very important assets, especially in a monarchical country.
+
+Besides, he was an old friend of Lord Saxham.  They had been colleagues
+together in their youth.  Lord Saxham was of a too violent and volcanic
+temperament to rise high in the diplomatic or any other profession.  Had
+he possessed a little more balance, he might have sat in many cabinets.
+But no Prime Minister who knew his business could run the risk of
+including him.  But, none the less, he exercised a certain outside
+influence.
+
+Rossett wrote every day to his beloved Isobel; if he had time, long
+letters; if diplomatic affairs were pressing, short ones, assuring her
+of his unalterable affection.  Isobel wrote every day also, most
+voluminous epistles, covering six or eight sheets of the flimsy
+notepaper.
+
+He wrote once a week to his dear sister, Mary, only second in his heart
+to Isobel.  And Mary also replied at great length, but she was not quite
+so voluminous as Isobel.  Her letters were generally taken up with
+reviewing, with her kind, gentle humour, the tantrums of her father, who
+appeared to be growing more explosive than ever.
+
+Rossett had exchanged one letter with his father, to which he got a
+reply.  Lord Saxham was not a great letter-writer, he kept to the point,
+and used as few words as possible.
+
+"Glad to hear you are getting on with Stonehenge--a very good fellow!
+Stick to it, my dear boy, and I will work for you at this end with
+Greatorex.  We shall see you an Ambassador yet."
+
+Guy smiled when he got this brief reply.  He knew as well as Mary that
+his father did not care twopence as to whether he got on in his
+profession or not.  He was only glad his son was out in Spain, because
+his sojourn in that country separated him from Isobel Clandon.  How
+frightfully obstinate he was!
+
+He often longed for his sweetheart, but still the days were very
+pleasant.  He speedily found himself popular in the society of Madrid.
+He had been received graciously by the King, who knew England well,
+equally graciously by the Queen, in her maidenhood a Princess of our own
+British stock.
+
+One man in particular had sought to attach himself to him, a man a few
+years older than himself, a certain Duke del Pineda.
+
+Pineda was a handsome-looking fellow who bore himself well, dressed
+immaculately, and was received at Court and by the best society.
+Unquestionably, so far as birth and antecedents were concerned, he was a
+Spanish Grandee of the first water.  And his manners were charming.
+
+But, all the same, there were certain whispers about him.  To begin
+with, it was well-known that he was impecunious.  And a Spanish duke,
+like an English one, is always looked at askance when he is suspected of
+impecuniosity.  A Duke has no reason to be short of ready money.
+
+Stonehenge, who had watched the growing intimacy between the two men,
+spoke to Rossett one day about it.
+
+"You seem very great friends with Pineda, I observe, Guy."  The
+Ambassador had fallen into the habit of calling him by his Christian
+name.
+
+Rossett looked at his chief squarely.  "Yes, sir, we go about a good
+deal together.  Of course, you have a reason in putting the question."
+
+"He is not on the list of `suspects' you gave me."
+
+Guy smiled quietly.  "No, but I think he will be very soon."
+
+Mr Stonehenge gave a sigh of relief.  "I see you know your business.  I
+don't know that Pineda has yet definitely decided, but he will swim with
+the tide.  If there is a revolution he will try to lead it, like
+Mirabeau.  In the meantime, he keeps in with both parties."
+
+"I have led him on to a few disclosures already," observed Rossett.
+
+"Ah, that is good.  I can see that if you stick to it, you will fly
+high.  Of course, you know he is as poor as a church mouse."
+
+There was a little grimness in Rossett's smile as he answered: "I am
+quite sure of that."  Stonehenge looked at him keenly.  "Ah, I don't
+want to be curious, but he has borrowed money of you?"
+
+The other nodded.  "A trifle, sir.  I thought it was worth it.  I shall
+lose it, of course, and although I have done it in the interests of my
+country, I don't suppose the Government will make it up to me."  The
+Ambassador laughed.  "Virtue is its own reward in this profession, my
+dear Guy.  They can subscribe any amount to the party funds, but they
+won't give an extra penny to the men who serve them well.  Anyway, I am
+glad you have taken the measure of Pineda.  He has really no brains."
+
+"An absolute ass," corrected Rossett, "an absolute ass, with more than a
+normal share of vanity."
+
+"A most accurate description," assented the chief.  "But, with his birth
+and connections, he might temporarily make a decent figurehead.
+Monarchies have had their _rois faineants_.  Revolutions when they start
+have upper class and middle-class puppets to lead them.  Afterwards, as
+we know, these are displaced by the extreme element."
+
+Rossett had found no difficulty in financing the impecunious Spanish
+grandee.  For Great-Aunt Henrietta, on hearing of his promotion, had
+forwarded him a very substantial cheque.
+
+Out of this, he had paid off Mr Jackson, and was able to take up his
+new post with a clean sheet.  Needless to say that his sister Mary, the
+most honourable of women, was delighted at the position of affairs.
+
+While events were progressing in Spain, Moreno the journalist had called
+on his old friend Farquhar at the familiar chambers in the Temple.  It
+was a few days after Moreno's initiation into the brotherhood by Lucue--
+the initiation which had been followed by that very significant
+interview with Violet Hargrave.
+
+The visitor's keen glance detected at once that his old friend looked
+gloomy and depressed.  And, in truth, Farquhar was in no jubilant mood.
+His rejection by his pretty cousin, Isobel, the knowledge that another
+man had secured what he so coveted, was weighing upon him heavily.
+
+He pulled himself together on Moreno's entrance, and extended a cordial
+hand.  He was a very reticent man, and always hid his feelings as much
+as possible.
+
+"Great things have happened since I last saw you, my friend," cried the
+journalist gaily.  "I am now a full-fledged member of the brotherhood,
+the great brotherhood.  You remember I told you I was going to be
+initiated?"
+
+Yes, Farquhar remembered.  Moreno had mentioned the fact, and he had
+been interested.  He had thought at the time his friend was running
+great risks, but no doubt the journalist was playing his own game in his
+own subtle way.
+
+Since that conversation, his own affairs had made him forgetful of
+everything save the daily duties of his profession, duties which he
+never neglected.
+
+He smiled genially.  "When are you going to blow us all up?  You haven't
+brought a bomb in your pocket by any chance?"
+
+Moreno shook his head.  "Much too crude, my good old friend.  We work in
+a more subtle way than that, by peaceful and pacific means."
+
+He knew Maurice Farquhar well enough, so sure was he of the sterling
+character of the man, to trust him with his life.  This reserved,
+somewhat priggish barrister would no more reveal a confidence than a
+Roman Catholic priest would betray the secrets of the confessional.
+
+At the same time a man in his delicate and dangerous position must be
+doubly and trebly cautious.  He must put even Farquhar off the scent,
+till the day arrived when he could speak freely.
+
+He spoke a moment after, in a rather abrupt tone.  "Forgive me for
+putting a certain question to you, and, believe me, it is not dictated
+from any spirit of impertinent curiosity.  You remember our meeting your
+cousin and Guy Rossett?  I told you I formed certain conclusions with
+regard to their relationship.  Have you by any chance had an opportunity
+of testing the accuracy of the opinion I formed?"
+
+For a moment Farquhar was at the point of telling this most inquisitive
+journalist to mind his own business, and not to pry into matters that,
+to all appearances, were no concern of his.
+
+Then he remembered that he had known the man for many years, and during
+the period of a very intimate acquaintance he had never known him guilty
+of a breach of good taste.
+
+Moreno had expressly stated he was animated with no spirit of
+impertinent curiosity.  In short, he had apologised for putting the
+question.  He then had some subtle and convincing reason for putting it.
+
+Farquhar spoke more frankly than he had at first thought would be
+possible under the circumstances.
+
+"After what you said, I made it my business to inquire.  I am very
+greatly attached to my uncle and cousin.  Whatever affects the welfare
+of either is deeply interesting to me."
+
+He paused a few seconds.  It was hard to admit to Moreno that his
+suspicions were justified.  And he was gaining a little time by
+expressing himself in these cautious and judicial words, words of course
+which told the keen young journalist what he wanted to know, without
+need of further speech.
+
+"It is, as you surmised, an absolute secret to all but a very few,"
+resumed Farquhar, after that brief pause.  "You diagnosed the situation
+perfectly.  Rossett's father is, at the present moment, the
+stumbling-block."
+
+"Thanks for your perfect frankness," answered Moreno easily.  The next
+question was one still more difficult to put, for he had guessed the
+situation as regards Farquhar quite easily.  The barrister was in love
+with Isobel Clandon himself, had delayed too long in his wooing, and too
+late learned the bitter truth, that a more enterprising lover had
+carried her off.
+
+"I take it that since you are greatly attached to your cousin, as well
+as your uncle, you would be disposed to help Rossett, in the event of
+his needing a friend?"
+
+There was no reserve in the voice that replied.
+
+"Yes, any man whom my cousin loves, whether he is her lover or husband,
+will find in me a friend."
+
+Moreno nodded his head.  He could not say how much he appreciated this
+attitude, for he was sure that Farquhar was genuinely in love with
+Isobel.  And he was sure now of what he had known all along, that the
+man was perfectly straight and honest, devoid of any petty or
+dishonouring meanness.  Self-sacrifice could go no further than this--to
+assist Isobel's lover.
+
+"I am very glad to hear that, Farquhar.  For the moment, my lips are
+sealed.  Even to you, my greatest friend, I cannot tell all.  But the
+day may come when danger will threaten Guy Rossett.  It will be well
+then to know who are the friends on whom he can rely.  It may be, when
+that day comes, you can help, perhaps you cannot.  But, if you can, I
+shall count upon you."
+
+"I have given you my promise," replied Farquhar simply.  "For the sake
+of Isobel Clandon, I will help Guy Rossett, if my assistance is of any
+use."
+
+A couple of hours later, Moreno left his friend's chambers, after
+talking on other and impersonal subjects.
+
+Shortly after that interview between the two men, there was a meeting at
+Maceda's restaurant.  It was a special function, convened especially by
+the great Lucue himself.  There were only six people present, the chief
+himself, Maceda, who, on this very particular occasion, had delegated
+the conduct of his establishment to his second in command, Jackson,
+otherwise Jacques the moneylender, the Frenchwoman, Valerie Delmonte,
+Violet Hargrave, and Andres Moreno, the latest recruit.
+
+The repast this time was of a much simpler nature.  It lacked the
+elegance and profusion characteristic of the ordinary assemblages, when
+the affairs of the brotherhood was discussed in a general fashion.  It
+was evident from these symptoms, concluded Moreno, that something of
+importance, some stern business was in the air.
+
+When the comparatively simple meal had been finished; Lucue opened the
+proceedings, speaking as usual in French.
+
+"I had hoped that our brother from Barcelona, Jaime Alvedero, would have
+been with us to-night," he explained to his fellow-conspirators.  "But
+grave affairs have detained him.  He is, as you know, technically my
+superior, but he has written to me, authorising me to act with full
+authority in this very important matter of Guy Rossett.  For the benefit
+of our latest member, Andres Moreno, I will just explain how, at the
+present moment, this young Englishman is a serious menace to the
+brotherhood."
+
+Moreno looked expectantly in his chief's direction.  He already knew a
+great deal of what Lucue was going to explain at length for the
+journalist's benefit, but he was too wide-awake to betray this.  He
+appeared profoundly moved by his chief's disclosures.
+
+He assumed an expression of the greatest gravity when Lucue had
+finished, for he knew that this apparently genial and most astute person
+was watching him narrowly.
+
+"It is a very serious menace, his appointment to the Court of Spain, as
+he will be on the spot," he commented quietly at the conclusion of the
+long harangue.  "It must be counteracted in some way and speedily.  As
+the newest member of this association, it does not become me to offer
+suggestions.  I leave these to wiser and more experienced heads."  He
+looked meaningly at the other three men, who he knew were the
+acknowledged chiefs of this particular section of the great brotherhood.
+
+Lucue indulged in a smile of approval.  Like most great men, he was not
+a little vain, and easily won by judicious flattery.
+
+"Our brother Moreno is very modest," he said pleasantly.  "But I have no
+doubt in a short space we shall find him one of our wisest counsellors.
+Well, ladies and gentlemen, we have a short way with people who try to
+thwart our well-laid plans."
+
+Moreno played splendidly.  He knew that, as the newest recruit, and with
+English blood running in his veins, he had to justify himself.
+
+"That is true statesmanship," he said, in a voice of deep conviction.
+"For although, for the time, we do not hold the reins of power, I am
+convinced that we are better and more far-seeing statesmen than those
+whom at the moment misgovern and oppress the world."
+
+There was loud applause at this speech.  The good-looking Frenchwoman
+clapped her hands loudly.  Jackson and Maceda grunted audible approval.
+Lucue's aspect grew more benign.  Violet Hargrave smiled her charming
+smile, which might mean anything, approval or disapproval.  At least, so
+Moreno thought.
+
+He was not quite sure of her yet.  Was she, through some inexplicable
+warp of temperament, devoted heart and soul to the schemes of this
+infamous association, or was she, like himself, playing a double game?
+
+"Since we are all united on our policy," broke in Lucue's bland tones,
+"it only remains to settle the means."
+
+There was a stir in the small assembly.  The Frenchwoman leaned forward
+eagerly; Moreno did the same.  He had no doubt of her fidelity to the
+cause.  He could not follow a safer guide.
+
+But after a longer discussion, they were unable to form any settled
+plan.  They all felt it was almost impossible to engineer the matter
+from England.  Finally, they agreed to refer it back to Alvedero, who
+had the advantage of being on the spot.
+
+Then Lucue made a suggestion.  "I propose that our comrades, Violet
+Hargrave and Andres Moreno, set out for Spain to confer with the leaders
+there.  I suggest them for this reason--being partly English, they will
+be able to move about more freely, be less liable to suspicion on
+account of that fact."
+
+Moreno and Violet Hargrave nodded their heads in confirmation of their
+acceptance of the task assigned them.
+
+Moreno shuddered inwardly, as he recalled the blood-curdling oaths which
+had been administered to him.  On Violet Hargrave's face had come a
+sudden expression which he could not quite define.  He was inclined to
+think that it reflected a certain happiness in the prospect of doing
+harm to Guy Rossett.
+
+The meeting broke up, and they went down the stairs together.  When they
+reached the door, Violet spoke.
+
+"Come to my flat to-night, as you did when you were first initiated,"
+she said, in the voice that sounded so sweet and womanly.  "It is
+evident that you and I are going to be very closely associated,"--she
+shot at him a coquettish glance--"whether you desire it or not."
+
+A man wholly Spanish on his father's side was not likely to be deficient
+in gallantry.
+
+"There is nothing I desire more, Mrs Hargrave.  Apart from the
+importance of our common aims and aspirations, there is nothing in our
+brief association with the brotherhood that has given me greater
+pleasure than the fact that I have been enabled to make your
+acquaintance."
+
+They hailed a passing taxi, stepped in, and drove to the flat in Mount
+Street.
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN.
+
+Two men sat at a small table in an inferior restaurant in one of the
+lower quarters of Madrid.
+
+One was dressed in the rough garb of a working-man.  This was Andres
+Moreno, who, in his adventurous life, had played many parts.  With his
+sardonic humour he was enjoying this particular role.  The danger that
+he ran added a spice to his enjoyment.
+
+The other man, Guy Rossett, was disguised also, but not quite so
+successfully.  Moreno, due to his birth, could never be mistaken for
+anything but a Spaniard.  On the other hand, Rossett could be easily
+recognised as a member of the bulldog race, a typical Englishman.
+
+That morning, at the Embassy, a note had been delivered by a trusted
+messenger.  It was a very brief one, and ran thus:
+
+"Dear Mr Rossett,--You will remember a certain evening at the Savoy,
+when you were dining with your sister, a young lady whose name I will
+not mention, and her father.  My host came over and spoke with you all
+for a few seconds.  I am in Spain on important business.  I should like
+to have a brief chat with you this afternoon."
+
+The writer had suggested the meeting in one of the unfashionable
+quarters of the town.
+
+He had appended his initials in a scrawling fashion.  But at once
+recollection had come to Guy Rossett.  He remembered that evening
+distinctly, when Maurice Farquhar had come over to their table, when
+General Clandon had expressed his displeasure at his nephew's associate,
+a man of whom Guy had some recollection.
+
+The scrawling initials might have stood for anything.  But Rossett
+deciphered them at once.  The writer was Andres Moreno, a member of the
+Secret Service, also often in the pay of Scotland Yard.
+
+Guy called for a bottle of wine.  Not trusting to the cigars of the
+country, he produced his own case, and proffered it to the pretended
+working-man.  Moreno waved it away.
+
+"We will have cigarettes, if you please," he said, in a low voice.
+"Very keen eyes are watching us here.  If you dangle that case much
+longer, they will put you down as a rich English milord.  We may have to
+meet here often, and we want to avoid that.  You see, I pose as a humble
+and unprosperous working-man."
+
+Rossett bowed to his companion's superior judgment.  Moreno knew the
+ropes better than he did.  Cigarettes were called for, and then the
+Spaniard opened the ball.  He spoke in French, in very low tones.
+
+"Your friends did not do you a very good service in sending you here,
+Mr Rossett.  At the present moment, yours is a very dangerous post."
+
+Rossett did not reply without reflecting.  He knew enough of this man to
+know that he was a trusted member of the Secret Service.  But he was
+intelligent enough to know that, in spite of certain walks in life,
+nobody can be entirely trusted.
+
+"Do you mind explaining a little more fully," he said cautiously.
+
+Moreno smiled pleasantly.  He appreciated the other's caution.  Rossett
+had a frank, open countenance, but he was not so innocent as he looked.
+
+"My dear sir, I will lay my cards on the table with pleasure.  I know a
+good deal about the Foreign Office and its ways.  Greatorex sent you
+over here because you happen to have come into possession of a good deal
+of useful information about the anarchist business in this country.  Am
+I right?"  Guy nodded.  "So far, you are right."
+
+It was a long time before Moreno spoke again.  He wanted to touch upon a
+delicate question, and he was not sure how far he might venture.  If he
+said what he wanted to say, he was making use of the private information
+that was given him by Maurice Farquhar.  Of course, Moreno, with his
+swift intuition, had arrived at the conclusion that family influence had
+been at the back of Rossett's promotion, for certain private reasons.
+
+"I take it also that your father, Lord Saxham, had something to do with
+this appointment."  Rossett flushed, and spoke haughtily.  He thought
+this cosmopolitan was presuming.
+
+"I am not aware that my father had anything to do with the matter."
+
+Moreno assented blandly.  "Perhaps, but excuse me for saying that your
+family might desire to remove you from the society of a certain very
+charming young lady, in whose company I saw you that night at the
+Savoy."
+
+"What do you know, or guess?" asked Rossett angrily.
+
+"Please, Mr Rossett, do not be irate with me.  Believe me I am your
+friend and well-wisher.  I cannot tell you as much as I would wish, for,
+in the double role I am playing, I have to be very cautious."
+
+"Please go on," said Rossett, a little mollified by the evident
+sincerity of his companion.
+
+"For certain reasons which I am not at liberty to divulge, I take an
+interest in the young lady, who, I am sure, is devoted to you, and to
+whom I am sure you are equally devoted.  I should also be pleased to be
+of service to yourself.  You know that I am a member of the Secret
+Service, and that I regard every Englishman as under my care."
+
+"Yes, I know that," assented Rossett a little grudgingly.  Like his
+chief, Mr Stonehenge, he had a rooted distrust of all foreign nations.
+Was this man playing a double game?  Anyway, he seemed to be remarkably
+well informed.
+
+"I suppose you would think it impertinent if I proffered you some very
+good advice?" was the Spaniard's startling question.
+
+Rossett stared at him.  Andres Moreno was most certainly a very
+extraordinary person.  And yet there was a certain fascination about the
+man which enabled him to take extraordinary liberties.
+
+"I will tell you when you have offered it," answered the young diplomat
+curtly.
+
+A greasy-looking waiter came up and hovered about the table.  Evidently
+he was wanting to listen to the conversation.  Moreno waved him angrily
+away, speaking in Spanish.
+
+"One of the gang," he whispered to Rossett.  "The city is honeycombed
+with them.  Perhaps he understands French; we will speak English."
+
+He paused a moment before he spoke again.
+
+"My advice to you is to clear out of this as quickly as you can, on some
+pretext or another.  Write a private note to Greatorex to recall you;
+mention my name, he knows me well.  Tell your father to pretend to be
+ill, and get leave of absence to go to his bedside.  You understand."
+
+"Why should I do this?" queried Guy sharply.  Moreno looked at him
+steadily.  "Go home as I advise you, and marry the girl you love.  Stay
+here, and this country, fair as it looks to outward seeming, is likely
+to provide you with a grave."
+
+For a second, Rossett's face blanched.  He was young, and death seemed
+far distant.  The ominous words of his companion had brought it very
+near.
+
+"Why, why?" he stammered.  His glance sought the sinister figure of the
+eavesdropping waiter hovering in the background.
+
+Moreno looked in the same direction.  "You see that scoundrel yonder,
+whom I chased away just now.  He carries a knife always with him; so do
+hundreds of his fellow ruffians.  You are in the black books of the
+brotherhood.  There are several looking out for an opportunity to put
+you out of the way, because you know too much of them and their doings.
+Take my advice, and clear out.  If you stop here, you have only a dog's
+chance."
+
+Rossett spoke slowly and distinctly, the sturdy bulldog breed asserting
+itself.  "I am sure you mean well.  But do you think I would run away
+before this cowardly pack?  Let them do their worst."
+
+"Think of the girl you love," pleaded Moreno pensively.  He thought the
+young man was a bit of a fool, but he could not help admiring him.
+
+A spasm of pain crossed Rossett's face.  On the one hand, home and love,
+Isobel Clandon for his wife.  On the other, flight before the dagger of
+the anarchist assassin.  Was there any doubt as to the choice, to a man
+of his breed?
+
+"I will stay," he said doggedly.  "And, if I put the issue to her,
+Isobel would say the same.  I will stay, and, with your help, I will win
+through to safety."
+
+Moreno at this juncture could not help swaggering a little.  "You have
+the best brains of the Secret Service at your disposal," he said, "but
+you are a heavy charge, Mr Rossett.  I should be much happier if you
+were back in England."
+
+"I go back in honour, not as a fugitive," answered Guy quietly, as the
+two men walked together out of the restaurant.
+
+"If that man had known who you were," observed Moreno, as they passed
+the waiter, "he would have slipped the knife into your ribs.  Adieu, my
+friend.  As you have chosen to stay here, we shall meet often.  I shall
+let you know how things are going on."
+
+And then, as they were parting, Rossett suddenly arrested him with a
+question.
+
+"But, I say, how do you justify your existence here?  What does Fleet
+Street say to your absence?"
+
+Moreno smiled his subtle smile.  "My dear friend, I am sending weekly
+articles up to Fleet Street on this delightful country, and its equally
+delightful population.  In short, I am `booming' Spain.  I am the
+innocent journalist, out on a much needed holiday."
+
+Rossett smiled.  "You are a very wonderful man.  _Au revoir_."
+
+That night three letters were written to London.  One was from Guy
+addressed to his sister, and it contained the important question, had
+his father anything to do with his appointment to Madrid; in other
+words, did he owe his promotion to anything except his own merits?
+
+Mary's reply came back in due course.  It was distinctly conciliatory
+and diplomatic.  But, as Mary was not very adapt at telling a lie, the
+truth peeped through.  It was evident to Guy that Lord Saxham had
+exercised his influence to get his son to Spain, with the view of
+separating him from Isobel; Guy felt very bitter towards his father.  He
+felt it was something in the nature of a dirty trick, diplomatic
+perhaps, but none the less of a questionable nature.
+
+Moreno wrote two letters.  The first was to Lady Mary Rossett.  He had
+not even been introduced to that charming young woman, but such an
+elementary fact as that did not deter him.  He explained who he was, he
+recalled the evening at the Savoy.  He pointed out that her brother was
+in great danger, and that she should use all the influence of her family
+to get Guy recalled on some pretext or another.  He added that he had
+met Guy in Madrid and urged this course upon him, that Guy on scenting
+danger, with the stubborn pride of the Englishman, had refused to
+abandon his post.
+
+The second letter he sent to the head of the English Secret Service with
+a request that it should be shown to Greatorex.  The motive of the
+second letter was the same as the first, that Guy Rossett should be got
+out of harm's way, before an anarchist knife should be dug in his ribs.
+
+Mary took the letter to her father.  She was very genuinely alarmed; she
+also had a faint recollection of the swarthy young Spaniard who had sat
+at an adjoining table on that well-remembered evening at the Savoy.  He
+had mentioned in his letter that he was a member of the Secret Service.
+She was disposed to trust him.
+
+She thrust the letter into Lord Saxham's hand with an almost tragic
+gesture.
+
+"Now, father, you can see what you have done by sending him over to
+Spain.  That wily old Greatorex wanted to use him just for his own
+purpose, and you fell in pat with his scheme."
+
+Lord Saxham read the letter, and his face blanched.  "Oh, my poor boy,"
+he groaned.
+
+His daughter loved him, but at the bottom of her heart there was always
+a little good-humoured contempt.  He was so terribly weak.  Headstrong,
+violent, and explosive, but always weak.
+
+Lady Mary spoke irritably; she was tender and compassionate, but not in
+the least weak.
+
+"We have got to act, father, and act immediately.  Guy must come back at
+once.  You must see this artful old Greatorex to-morrow."
+
+Saxham promised that he would see Greatorex to-morrow.  He 'phoned up
+that important personage, and fixed an appointment.
+
+The two men met.  By that time Greatorex had received Moreno's letter
+from the head of the Secret Service.  He knew, therefore, exactly what
+his old friend Lord Saxham had come about.
+
+The Earl began in his usual explosive manner.  "By God, Greatorex, you
+haven't treated me well in this matter.  You have sent my poor boy to
+his death."
+
+If Lord Saxham had been a less important member of the aristocracy, the
+imperturbable Greatorex would have shown him the door.  But under the
+circumstances forbearance had to be exercised.
+
+"Softly, softly, if you please, my dear Saxham.  It was at your request
+I sent your son to Spain, to get him out of an unfortunate
+entanglement."
+
+"I know, I know," spluttered the Earl, never very great in argument,
+"but I didn't know he was going to his death."
+
+"No, more did I," replied Greatorex, speaking with his usual calm.  "Now
+let us be reasonable and avoid indulging in mutual recriminations which
+irritate both parties.  What do you want me to do?"
+
+"Recall him at once," thundered Lord Saxham.
+
+"One moment, if you please," said Greatorex quietly.  "We have got to
+consider Guy's views on this matter.  I have here a confidential
+communication from a very trusted member of our Secret Service.  He has
+warned Guy of his danger, put all the possibilities and probabilities
+before him, and Guy refuses to budge.  In short, he declines to run
+away.  What have you got to say to that?"
+
+"Then I say he is a most infernal fool," cried Lord Saxham in his most
+explosive manner.  Greatorex's lip curled a little.
+
+"Perhaps from your point of view.  Shall I give you mine?"
+
+"If you like," said Saxham sullenly.  He was not so dense that he could
+not see what was in the other man's mind.
+
+"He is a very brave young Englishman of the true bulldog breed, who is
+going to stick to his post oblivious of the consequences.  It is that
+breed that makes the British Empire what it is.  Do you still want me to
+recall him?"
+
+"Yes," spluttered the Earl.  "I want him recalled.  I don't intend him
+to be done to death by a dirty Spanish anarchist."
+
+Greatorex's look was very disdainful.
+
+"I will be on the wires all day with Stonehenge and Guy.  If he consents
+to be recalled on any pretext, I will recall him.  But please understand
+me, Saxham; he shall only be recalled with his own consent.  I will go
+no further."
+
+The tall, lean man stood up, and towered over the somewhat blustering
+Lord Saxham.
+
+"You can recall him, whether he consents or not," cried the angry
+father, "if you choose."
+
+"In this case I am not going to exercise my prerogative.  It is no use
+arguing, Saxham.  On this point my mind is made up.  I will only add
+that I greatly admire your son's attitude.  If he sticks to this
+business, he will have a great career before him."
+
+"Unless he is murdered to-morrow," commented Saxham bitterly, as he
+walked out of the room.
+
+The poor old Earl went back to Ticehurst Park in a very agitated frame
+of mind.  Lady Mary was his favourite child, but Guy was his best
+beloved son.  Ticehurst would inherit the lands and the title, but for
+Ticehurst he had only a very mild liking.
+
+Mary met him in the hall.  She was only a little less perturbed than her
+father.
+
+"What news?" she cried eagerly.  "Have you induced Greatorex to recall
+him?"
+
+Lord Saxham had to confess to failure.  He went with her into the
+morning-room, and related at full length the details of his interview
+with Greatorex.  That powerful personage was ready to fall in with his
+views--but the stumbling-block was Guy himself.  If Guy stuck to his
+resolution not to seek safety in flight, Greatorex would not move.
+
+Mary's sweet eyes filled with tears.  She had already abused Greatorex,
+but she was too just not to understand his attitude.  At the bottom of
+his heart, Greatorex approved of Guy's resolution to stick to his post,
+whatever the consequences.
+
+"I am sorry I said harsh things of Greatorex," she said in a broken
+voice.  "Of course Guy himself could take no other course, and his chief
+admires his indomitable spirit.  But, all the same, we must move heaven
+and earth to get him away."
+
+The Earl sank wearily into a chair.  Presently he began to cry and moan.
+"Oh, my poor boy.  To think I have exposed him to this danger by my
+ill-advised action."
+
+Poor Lady Mary was on the verge of hysteria herself, but the senile
+grief of the old Earl made her strong and self-reliant.  Her brain was
+working quickly.  Could she not turn this moment to advantage?
+
+"You are sorry for what you have done, father?  You recognise that, but
+for your unfortunate intervention, Guy would never have gone to Spain."
+
+"I know, I know," replied poor old Lord Saxham in quavering accents.  "I
+would cut off my right hand if, by doing so, I could undo that morning's
+work with Greatorex.  I was very proud of it at the time."
+
+Mary spoke very slowly, very calmly.  "Guy has got in him the Rossett
+obstinacy, and, after all, he is only acting as a brave man should.  We
+are less brave for him than he is for himself."
+
+The Earl stretched out his shaking hands.
+
+"Mary, will you write and implore him to let Greatorex recall him.
+Greatorex has given me his promise to do so, if Guy consents."
+
+Mary shook her head.  "Guy is very fond of me, I know.  In many things I
+could influence him, but not in this.  It is no use your writing to him,
+you have less influence over him than I.  If he would not listen to me,
+he will not listen to you."
+
+"Then he is doomed."  The poor old Earl's head sank on his breast, and
+he surrendered himself to despair.
+
+And now had come Mary's great opportunity, and she took advantage of it.
+She was no mean diplomatist at any time.
+
+"I shall not move him, you will not move him.  And you say you cannot
+move Greatorex.  There is just one person in the world who might
+persuade him.  I am not quite sure even about her."
+
+Lord Saxham was very subdued, very penitent, but there was still some of
+the old Adam left in him.  He answered quickly; the voice was still
+quavering, but there was in it a querulous note.
+
+"You mean that--"
+
+Lady Mary lifted a warning finger; she knew he was going to say "minx."
+
+"Father, please, this is no time for old and foolish animosities.  Guy's
+life is at stake, through his noble, perhaps exaggerated, sense of
+honour.  You and I are powerless to alter his determination.  There is
+just a chance that Isobel will be more successful.  Will you put your
+pride in your pocket and ask her to plead with him?"
+
+It was a hard struggle, but in the end Lord Saxham's affection for his
+son won.  The old aristocrat gave in.
+
+"Do what you like, Mary.  I will consent to anything to get Guy back."
+
+Mary moved swiftly to the writing-table.  "I shall ask her and her
+father to come to us to-morrow for a visit with the view of your
+sanctioning her engagement to Guy.  I shall ask her to wire their
+acceptance."
+
+The Earl sat as in a dream, while she wrote; dimly he realised that
+events had taken a turn which he could not approve.  But there was no
+other course left.  Mary's letter was brief.
+
+"My Dearest Isobel,--My father has consented to approve your engagement
+to Guy.  We shall both be delighted if you and General Clandon will pay
+us a visit.  Please come to-morrow, if possible.  In that case, send me
+a wire on receipt of this note.
+
+"Yours affectionately,
+
+"Mary Rossett."
+
+Isobel received that letter next morning.  She carried it to her father
+with shining eyes.
+
+The General read it, and kissed her.
+
+"Good news, indeed, my dear little girl.  Lady Mary seems a witch, and
+able to work miracles."
+
+"Oh, isn't she a darling?" cried Isobel enthusiastically.  "Shall I send
+the wire at once?"  The wire was sent.  Poor Isobel was a little
+distressed about the scantiness of her wardrobe.  But she took heart of
+grace when she reflected that this was sure to be quite a private visit.
+It was not likely there would be other guests on such an especially
+family occasion.
+
+Lady Mary met them at the station.  She kissed Isobel affectionately,
+and shook the General, who looked very aristocratic and dignified,
+warmly by the hand.
+
+"How did you manage it, you darling?" whispered Isobel as they sat
+together in the car.
+
+"Circumstances went in my favour; it is not quite entirely due to my own
+diplomacy," answered Mary a little shyly.  She knew that, in a way, she
+had struck a bargain with her aristocratic and obstinate old father, the
+chance of saving Guy against his indomitable pride.
+
+And she knew also that Isobel's faithful heart would be very wounded
+when she learned the fact of her sweetheart's peril.
+
+"You will know all about it after dinner to-night," she added evasively.
+"You must rein in your impatience till then."
+
+Isobel smiled happily.  The world was rose-coloured to-day.  Was not the
+last obstacle to her happiness removed?  Would not her beloved Guy marry
+her in the sight of the whole world?  His world as well as her own?
+
+Lord Saxham was awaiting them in the big hall, having now fully
+reconciled himself to the situation.  He had many faults; he was
+choleric, obstinate, and a good deal of an opportunist.  But whatever
+line of action he took, even if he somewhat stultified himself in the
+process, he always bore himself with a certain dignity.
+
+His meeting with the Clandons was expressive of his methods.  He held
+out his right hand cordially to the General.  With his left he drew
+Isobel towards him, and printed a fatherly kiss upon her forehead.
+
+"Welcome to Ticehurst, my dear child, which henceforth you must look
+upon as a second home.  If Guy were here to-day our happiness would be
+complete."
+
+The warm-hearted Isobel was ready to burst into tears.  The Earl was
+behaving like a gentleman; she forgave him his former obduracy.  After
+all, was it not natural that he should wish Guy to marry a woman in his
+own world?
+
+They had a very elaborate dinner, to which the host and the General did
+full justice.  Isobel was too happy to care about food.  Lady Mary ate
+just enough to keep her alive, according to her usual custom.
+
+After dinner they went into one of the small drawing-rooms.  Here Lord
+Saxham, in very happy phrases, expressed his cordial consent to the
+engagement between Guy and Isobel.  The men shook hands, the two girls
+kissed each other.  It was a charming family scene.
+
+And then, in a manner, the real business of the evening began.  Lady
+Mary began to explain things in a low and hesitating voice, that often
+faltered.
+
+She felt just a little ashamed of her task.  Isobel was quite innocent,
+but she was not without brains.  The General, she was sure, was quite
+keen.  When she finished her recital, she knew both father and daughter
+would attribute the Earl's sudden conversion to its proper cause.
+
+But Mary had not quite finished, when the Earl broke in, in his usual
+impetuous way.
+
+"You see, Isobel,"--he had by now taken quite whole-heartedly to the
+idea of her as his daughter-in-law--"we must have Guy back as quickly as
+possible.  At the present moment, you are the person who has the
+greatest influence over him.  No doubt, at a word from you he will
+come."
+
+Isobel indulged in a rather forced smile; it struck Mary that there was
+something a little enigmatic in that smile.  Of course, Lord Saxham had
+blundered as usual, he had revealed the truth just a little too nakedly.
+Isobel was reckoning up her welcome at its true value, so far as her
+host was concerned.
+
+This, of course, Isobel did, so did her father.  But she was too
+sensible a girl to be offended.  She, was, perhaps, a little
+disappointed that she did not owe this swift change of policy to her
+true friend.  Lady Mary.
+
+She thought a little before she spoke.  "Are you quite sure that Guy
+would come back, if I implored him to do so," she said at length.
+
+She turned towards Lord Saxham with a pleasant smile that robbed her
+words of any subtle impertinence.
+
+"Guy has always told me that there is a strong vein of obstinacy in the
+Rossett family.  Perhaps,"--and here a proud light came into her
+eyes--"I could influence him more than anybody else in the world."
+
+Mary looked imploringly at her.
+
+"And, Isobel, you will use that influence of course?"
+
+"I will tell you something that, up to the present, I have only told my
+father," replied the girl quietly.  "I knew of all this some little time
+ago.  My cousin, Maurice Farquhar, has a great friend, half Spanish,
+half English, who is also a journalist.  He told my cousin that danger
+was threatening Guy.  Maurice told me.  You can guess what I felt.  Guy
+is as dear to me as he is to you."
+
+"Of course, there is no need to tell us that," cried Lady Mary hastily.
+
+"My first impulse was to write to Guy, tell him what I had heard, and
+implore him to leave this dangerous country.  I consulted my father.  I
+did not write that letter.  Many a night I have lain awake, and in the
+morning resolved to write it.  It is still unwritten."
+
+The Earl's face bore a puzzled expression.  Lady Mary seemed somewhat
+bewildered too.  General Clandon alone displayed no emotion.
+
+"I don't understand," breathed Mary softly.
+
+"Oh, can't you see?" cried Isobel quickly.  "Suppose Guy yielded to my
+prayers, and seized some excuse to come back!  Might he not in after
+years reproach me for having induced him to play a coward's part?
+Surely you can understand what I feel."
+
+And, in one swift moment of comprehension, the worldly and opportunist
+Earl and his far nobler daughter understood.
+
+Lady Mary looked at her father with a triumphant smile.  She had gauged
+Isobel aright from the first.
+
+Gone for ever the dishonouring suspicions of a designing young woman
+seeking to make her fortune by a wealthy marriage.  It was all too
+obvious.  With Guy's departure from Spain, Isobel had everything to
+gain.  With his sojourn in that dangerous country she stood to lose
+everything.
+
+"Whether I marry Guy or not," went on the low, sweet voice, breaking at
+the end into a little sob, "his honour is my first consideration."
+
+The General's deep tones broke the intense silence that succeeded those
+few words.
+
+"Lord Saxham, Lady Mary, I most heartily approve Isobel's attitude.  I
+am sure Mr Rossett feels as I do in this matter.  If he deserted his
+post at this juncture, he would be like the soldier who runs away on the
+battlefield."
+
+Lord Saxham looked at the beautiful, slender girl, so noble in her
+self-sacrificing love.
+
+"My dear," he said, in tones that were a little unsteady, "you are a
+wonderful woman.  Guy could not have chosen more wisely.  I am sorry--
+very sorry--" He broke off.  It was not perhaps precisely the moment to
+apologise for his previous obstinacy, his rancour against "the little
+girl who lived in a cottage at Eastbourne."
+
+Lady Mary went round the table, put her arms round her, and kissed her
+warmly.
+
+"You are a brave and beautiful darling," she said, with a woman's
+enthusiasm.  "You have taught both my father and myself a lesson in
+unselfishness.  God grant that our dear Guy comes back to us safe and
+sound."
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT.
+
+A tall, lean man of about sixty years of age, of dignified appearance,
+came out of a house in Fitzjohn's Avenue, Hampstead, and walked slowly
+in the direction of the station at Swiss Cottage.
+
+He was a very aristocratic-looking person; you might have taken him for
+a retired ambassador, except for the fact that retired ambassadors do
+not live in the neighbourhood of Finchley Road.  At the first glance you
+might have thought he was an Englishman, with his clear complexion, his
+short, pointed beard.  A closer inspection revealed the distinguishing
+traits of the foreigner.  But even then you would have been inclined to
+put him down as a Frenchman, rather than a Spaniard.
+
+Ferdinand Contraras, such was his name, was one of the principal leaders
+of the world-wide anarchist movement.  A man of learning and education,
+he had worked it out to his own satisfaction that anarchy was the cure
+for all social evils.  A man of considerable wealth, he had devoted the
+greater portion of his possessions to the spreading of this particular
+propaganda.  His zeal in the great cause burnt him with a consuming
+fire.
+
+One is confronted with these anomalies in all countries--men of family
+and refinement, reaching out sincere hands to the proletariat, and
+welcoming them into a common brotherhood.
+
+Mirabeau led the French Revolution in its first steps, an aristocrat of
+the first water.  Tolstoi, equally an aristocrat, preached very
+subversive doctrines.
+
+Ferdinand Contraras, from conviction, sentimentality, or some other
+equally compelling motives, hated his own order, and devoted himself
+heart and soul to the service of the masses as against the classes.  He
+had spent much more than half his very considerable fortune on the
+necessary propaganda of his principles.  From the house in Fitzjohn's
+Avenue he, in conjunction with a few other enthusiastic spirits,
+controlled the policy which was directed to upset an old and effete
+world and construct a new and perfect one on the ruins of the old.
+
+He waited outside the station for quite five minutes, tapping his stick
+impatiently the while.  He was, by temperament, a very impatient and
+autocratic person, like most people who aspire to sovereign power.
+
+The burly and imposing figure of Lucue appeared through the gloom of the
+station.  The two men shook hands.  Contraras grumbled a little.
+
+"My friend, punctuality was never your very special virtue.  You were to
+be at my house by a quarter-past six.  It is now a quarter to seven,
+half an hour late, and I am meeting you at the station.  It would take
+another five minutes to get to my house."
+
+"That would mean I should be quite thirty-five minutes late, eh?"
+queried Lucue in his usual easy, genial fashion.  He had the greatest
+respect for the great leader, Ferdinand Contraras; he fully recognised
+his single-mindedness, his devotion to the cause.  But he was also aware
+of his little weaknesses of temper, his proneness to take offence at
+trifles.  "I am honestly very sorry I have kept you waiting, but it was
+impossible to get away before."
+
+Lucue surveyed the neighbourhood around him with some contempt, and
+added: "Besides, if you will live in an out-of-the-way spot like this,
+you can't blame your friends if they find it a bit difficult to get to
+you."
+
+Lucue himself lived in lodgings in a mean street in Soho.  In spite of
+his reverence for his chief, he did not quite relish the fact that
+Contraras was living in a lordly pleasure house, that he fared every day
+on the daintiest food, and was very particular as to vintages.
+Contraras, in spite of his sacrifices to the great cause, was not
+exactly practising what he preached.
+
+Lucue himself was poor.  Hence, perhaps, these profound meditations.  It
+would not be going too far to say that Lucue was already anticipating
+the day when Contraras would be required, under the new dispensation, to
+hand over the remainder of his wealth for the common benefit.
+
+But things had not got so far as this at the moment.  Law and order were
+still in the ascendant, and anarchy had not yet got its foot into the
+stirrup, much less was it mounted in the saddle.
+
+The two men walked up to the house in Fitzjohn's Avenue, where Contraras
+lived in some sort of state.  A butler opened the door, a footman
+hovered in the background.  There would be a dinner of many courses,
+there would be wines of the first quality.  For the leader of the great
+anarchist movement did himself and his friends very well.  Poor
+Contraras!  He often failed to notice the envious eyes of his friends,
+the humble friends who left his hospitable house to return to their
+dingy lodgings in Soho, or the mean streets off Tottenham Court Road.
+
+He took Lucue into his private sitting-room.  A decanter of whiskey,
+soda-water, and glasses were ready on the table, placed there by the
+thoughtful butler.  In the best of all possible worlds there would be no
+butlers thought Lucue grimly, as he helped himself at his host's
+invitation.
+
+"What of Guy Rossett?" asked Contraras abruptly, when the two men were
+seated.  "He knows a great deal.  He knows too much."
+
+"My section is dealing with his affair," replied Lucue smoothly.
+"Violet Hargrave and Andres Moreno are over in Spain, as of course you
+know."
+
+Contraras grunted.  He was not in a very good mood to-night; he had not
+yet forgiven Lucue for his lack of punctuality.
+
+"Violet Hargrave I know, of course, a friend and protegee of our staunch
+old comrade Jaques.  Moreno I know nothing about.  Who is he, what is
+he?"
+
+Lucue explained.  Moreno was a journalist, his father pure Spanish, his
+mother an Englishwoman.  His principles were sound.  He was a
+revolutionary heart and soul.
+
+Contraras was still in the grunting stage.  He helped himself to another
+whiskey.
+
+"You are a judge of men, Lucue; you seldom make mistakes," he said, in
+rather a grudging voice.
+
+"I don't quite like the idea of the English mother.  You have thought
+that all out?"
+
+"Quite," was the swift reply.  "Moreno comes to us with settled
+convictions.  He is, like yourself, a philosophical anarchist."
+
+It certainly said a good deal for Moreno's powers of persuasion that he
+had succeeded in convincing the suspicious Lucue of his sincerity.
+
+The gong sounded for dinner.  Contraras kept to his gentlemanly habits;
+his house was ordered in orthodox fashion.  His wife, a faded-looking
+woman, who had once been a beauty, sat at the head of the table.  His
+daughter, a comely, dark-eyed girl, his only child, faced the guest.
+Neither wife nor daughter had the slightest sympathy with the peculiar
+views of the head of the household.  As a matter of fact, they thought
+he was just a trifle insane on this one particular point.
+
+They detested the strange-looking men, some of them in very shabby
+raiment, who came to this well-appointed house in Fitzjohn's Avenue, to
+partake of their chief's hospitality and drink his choice wines.  They
+marvelled between themselves at the blindness of Contraras.  Could he
+not see that these shabby creatures hated him for his wealth, for the
+hospitality which they regarded as a form of ostentation?
+
+Several times both mother and daughter had tried to point this out to
+him.
+
+"Live in a little forty-pound-a-year house, without a maid, with Inez
+and me to scrub and cook, and they might believe in you," his wife had
+remarked bitterly on one occasion when her nerves had been more than
+usually upset by the intrusion of some very shabby looking guests.  "Of
+course, now they reckon you up at your true value.  You are making the
+best of the present order of things, getting the best you can out of it.
+Bah!  What do you expect if your dreams come to pass?  They will not
+leave you a sixpence, these wretches whom you have put into power.  They
+will strip you at once."
+
+The visionary had smiled condescendingly.  He had a poor opinion of the
+mental capacity of women.  They had no initiative, no foresight.
+
+But he was very tolerant to the weaker vessel.  He patted the faded
+cheek of his once beautiful wife, a daughter of the old Spanish
+nobility.  He was a kind husband, a fond father.
+
+"You do not understand these difficult matters, my dear," he replied in
+his loftiest tones.  "The world will always be governed by brains,
+whether under a just or an unjust regime."  He tapped his broad forehead
+significantly.  "When it comes to brains, Ferdinand Contraras will not
+be found wanting."
+
+Madame shrugged her shoulders and glanced at her pretty daughter, who
+made a signal of assent.  Certainly, Contraras, great as was his power
+in anarchist circles, was not held in high esteem in his own family.
+
+Towards Lucue the two women did not exhibit the same signs of aversion
+which they usually displayed to the other guests.  The reason was
+obvious.  He was a self-seeking, grasping fellow.  He loved the
+flesh-pots, the good things of life.  If he got into power with his
+chief, they would take the best for themselves and let their poor dupes
+feed on the husks.  The difference between the two men was that
+Contraras was troubled with an almost ridiculous sentimentality.  Lucue,
+big, genial, and humorous, was as callous as any human being could be.
+And he, moreover, had no conscience.
+
+The meal was finished.  Although in a way Lucue despised his chief's
+ostentatious mode of living, he was very fond of good wine and food.
+There might come a time when, through Contraras' brains, he would be in
+a similar position.  The two men adjourned to the private sitting-room,
+where the great man produced some special brandy and choice cigars.
+
+"Drink, my friend," said the host genially.  "We shall think none the
+less wisely because we take an excellent glass of brandy and smoke an
+equally excellent cigar."
+
+Lucue assented, but after a brief pause he spoke a little bluntly.
+
+"You will not think I am taking a liberty, my good comrade, if I say a
+few words to you.  We have a difficult team to drive.  Many of our
+brotherhood, most, alas, are very poor.  Exception is taken by some of
+them to your mode of living.  They think the great Contraras should
+bring himself more on a level with his less fortunate brethren."
+
+Contraras frowned.  By nature he was more autocratic than the most
+despotic monarch who even subjugated a docile people.  But he recognised
+that Lucue's words conveyed a warning.
+
+"What would they have?  My wife has said the same thing to me, and at
+the time I fancied it was the foolish babbling of a woman.  Now I see
+that there was some wisdom in her remarks."
+
+"Equality is our watchword," observed Lucue with a rather subtle smile.
+
+"Of course," agreed Contraras smoothly.  "That is our aim, our goal.
+But, under present conditions, we cannot practise it.  I have, as you
+know, given the greater portion of my money to the cause.  I have proved
+my sincerity.  You will say I have left some for myself.  True, but that
+is a wise policy.  I live here in a certain sort of comfort.  The
+position I keep up helps me to remain unsuspected.  Nobody will think I
+am such a fool as to embrace anarchy.  With these trappings, I can work
+better for the cause than if I hid myself in a back street in Soho."
+
+Lucue agreed.  The chief had a long head.  Lucue might envy, but he
+could not refrain from admiring him.
+
+Contraras broke away from the embarrassing topic of inequality in
+fortune.  He spoke brusquely.
+
+"To return to this Englishman, Rossett.  You think you can settle his
+hash?"
+
+Lucue nodded his big head.  "It is settled, as I told you.  I am working
+in conjunction with Alvedero and Zorrilta."
+
+"No two better men, they are staunch to the core, true sons of Spain,"
+said Contraras approvingly.  "One thing I would love to know, Lucue.
+Who supplied Rossett with his information?"
+
+"That I am also keen to know.  There are always traitors in every camp.
+Perhaps some day I may find out."
+
+The two men talked till it was time for Lucue to catch his train.
+Contraras walked with him to the station.
+
+The chief wrung him by the hand.  "If you ever find that traitor, no
+half measures, you understand."
+
+Lucue smiled a grim smile.  "You can never accuse me of sentimentality.
+The penalty for every traitor is death."
+
+CHAPTER NINE.
+
+It had been a very hot August day.  The old-world town of Fonterrabia
+had glowed in the torrid heat.  With the sinking of the sun had come a
+sudden breath of comparative coolness.
+
+In a small room facing the sea, in the obscure little cafe "The Concho"
+there sat four people.  They were respectively, Zorrilta, Jaime
+Alvedero, two of the most trusted lieutenants of the great Contraras--
+Contraras who directed his world-wide campaign from the safe and
+sheltered precincts of Fitzjohn's Avenue, Hampstead--Andres Moreno,
+journalist, trusted agent of the English Secret Service, ostensibly
+sworn anarchist, and lastly Violet Hargrave, now domiciled in Spain in
+the interests of the brotherhood, in England a somewhat well-known
+member of the semi-smart set.
+
+Moreno, as we know, was the son of a purely Spanish father and an
+English mother.  Violet Hargrave was not greatly given to confidences.
+But the pair had been thrown much together.  In spite of their mixed
+nationality, Spain was, to a great extent, a foreign land to them.
+
+Violet had been born in Spain and lived there up to the age of ten, but
+her memories of the country were faint and fragmentary.  Moreno had been
+born in England, brought up and educated there.  He spoke Spanish
+perfectly since his father had taught him the language, and conversed in
+it with him from childhood.  In that father's company he had made some
+dozen trips to what was really his native country, he had visited every
+important town--Barcelona, Toledo, Seville, Granada, Segovia, not to
+mention Madrid.
+
+Still, they were both more English than foreign, and there was an
+unconscious sympathy between them arising from this fact.  Moreno's
+heart ached for the familiar haunts of Fleet Street, for the restaurants
+where the odour of garlic was not always greatly in evidence.  And
+Violet sighed for the elegant flat in Mount Street, with its perfect
+appointments.  She had grown to loathe this sun-baked Biscayan coast.
+
+Being thrown so much in each other's society, caution had been a little
+relaxed on the woman's side--Moreno had never for a moment relaxed his.
+Violet Hargrave was still an enigma to him.  He was not prepared to
+trust her in the smallest degree.  But in his peculiar position he could
+trust nobody.
+
+One day she had been very confidential.  It had been after a good
+dinner, followed by one or two potent liqueurs.  On such an occasion
+even the most cautious woman of the world may find her tongue loosened.
+
+She had confided to Moreno a considerable portion of her family history.
+Her father, a ne'er-do-well, a soldier of fortune--she frankly gave
+this description of her male parent--had fallen in love with and married
+her Spanish mother, a beautiful young girl, a professional dancer, not,
+however, occupying a _Very_ high position in her profession.
+
+It peeped through the narrative, told in a rather staccato fashion, that
+her father had lived chiefly on his wife's small earnings, that he did
+no regular work, but acted as her agent.  When she was ten years of age,
+her mother died, and her father was thrown on his own resources.
+
+They had come to London.  James Wheeler, such was her father's name, had
+at once sought out a rich financier known in business circles as Mr
+Jackson.  His real name was Juan Jaques, he was a Spaniard, and he had
+at one time been desperately in love with her mother.
+
+For the sake of that old affection, he had befriended the derelict
+father and the helpless child.  He had set Wheeler on his legs, so far
+as it was possible to help such a weak and incapable creature.  But
+Wheeler was addicted to drink and was cursed with a feeble constitution.
+In a few years, the drink carried him off.  Violet, at the age of
+eighteen, was left alone in the world.  Her mother, no doubt, had
+relatives in Spain, but she knew nothing of them.  Of her father's
+relations, if he had any, she had never heard him speak.
+
+Whatever the failings of the moneylender in certain directions, he
+behaved with rare generosity and tenderness to the daughter of his old
+sweetheart.  He advanced money to secure her a good education.  He did
+his best to secure for her eligible posts.
+
+Still, on the whole, she had experienced a rough time.  She could do a
+little of everything fairly, but nothing very well.  She had tried the
+concert hall, the stage, and been a failure on both.  She had not even
+inherited her mother's talent for dancing.
+
+But poor old Jaques was always patient and kind.  He kept her going with
+an allowance that might be called handsome.  At the back of his mind he
+felt pretty sure that Violet would prove a winner in the end.
+
+She had been very seedy.  Jaques had summoned her to his private room,
+thrust a hundred pounds worth of notes into her hand, and ordered her to
+take herself off to the most expensive hotel in Scarborough, to pick up
+health and strength.  They would map out together some fresh plan of
+campaign when she came back.
+
+At the expensive hotel in Scarborough, she met Jack Hargrave, a
+personable young fellow, who seemed to have plenty of money, and was of
+good family.
+
+At that time Violet was a very thrifty young woman--she learned
+expensive habits later on--she reckoned that she would stay at
+Scarborough for a fortnight, and return with a handsome balance out of
+the hundred pounds.  Then the kind Jaques, to whom she was genuinely
+grateful, would not have to put his hand in his pocket for some little
+time.
+
+She met Jack Hargrave, who was staying at the same hotel.  He fell
+violently in love with her, with her blonde prettiness.  At the end of
+the first week he proposed.
+
+Violet was attracted by him, perhaps a little bit in love.  She accepted
+him on the spot, and went off the next morning to London to consult
+Jaques, in whom she placed her full confidence.
+
+There was here a little break in the story, as told to Moreno.
+Evidently her guardian approved.  She married Jack Hargrave, and they
+had taken the flat in Mount Street, of which she was still the tenant.
+
+Here Moreno had interrupted.  "You say that Jack Hargrave was well-off.
+How did he make his money?  Flats in Mount Street are not run on
+credit."
+
+"Oh, don't you know?  It was Jaques who put him into good things in the
+City, out of friendship for me."
+
+"But, one moment," pursued Moreno.  "He was well-off when he met you.
+How was he making money when our good old friend Jaques had not appeared
+on the scene?"
+
+Violet, under the influence of the liqueurs, was a little off her guard.
+
+"Oh, don't be silly.  Jack was a very expert bridge-player."
+
+Moreno nodded.  "I think I understand.  We won't go into details.  Under
+his instructions, you became a very expert bridge-player too.  It used
+to be whispered that you were just a little bit too lucky."
+
+Violet Hargrave admitted that many rumours had been flying about, and
+that the flat in Mount Street had become a little suspect.
+
+"And how did you get into this?" had been Moreno's next question.
+
+Violet had been very frank.  "It was dear old Jaques who drew me into
+it.  You know I have told you how grateful I was to him, how indebted.
+When he asked me, could I refuse, after all the benefits he had showered
+upon me?"
+
+"Impossible," said Moreno in his quiet, easy tones.  He added, after a
+pause, "I wonder if your heart is in it?"
+
+She flashed at him a swift glance of interrogation.  "I wonder if yours
+is?"
+
+Moreno smiled.  They were then each suspecting the other, on account of
+their mixed parentage.
+
+"Absolutely," he answered in a tone of deep conviction.  "I am
+nine-tenths Spaniard, one-tenth Englishman.  You are one-tenth Spaniard
+and nine-tenths Englishwoman.  I very much doubt if your heart is in
+it."
+
+Violet spoke in a low, hard voice.  And she also felt there was need of
+caution.
+
+"I have lived a very hard life, depending upon charity, generous charity
+I admit, for many years.  I think I do not love the present order of
+things.  I am really an anarchist; I think I may truly say my heart is
+in it."
+
+Moreno accepted her statement.  She was still an enigma to him.  She had
+spoken of Jaques with a genuine sense of gratitude, she had alluded to
+her late husband in terms of sincere affection.  The woman had her
+sentimental moments.
+
+Then he remembered that she was the daughter of a drunken and derelict
+father--this much she had told him.  Her mother was a Spanish dancer of
+unknown origin.  Out of this peculiar blend, was it possible to fashion
+an honest woman.  Moreno doubted it.
+
+He remembered the night in the flat at Mount Street, when she had
+vindictively declared that Guy Rossett had to be got out of the way.
+
+He had looked at the still very pretty woman, her fair cheeks just a
+little flushed with the after results of the good dinner.  She had,
+perhaps, her good points, but was she not an absolute degenerate?
+Daughter of the wastrel father and the Spanish dancer!
+
+He had been very sympathetic through the recital.  He had helped her on
+with an encouraging word or two in the pauses of her narrative, for at
+times she had evidently pulled herself up with the recollection that she
+was being too frank.  But he had learned a good deal about Violet's
+past.
+
+He still had his suspicions.  Perhaps another dinner or two might get
+more out of her.
+
+The four conspirators sat in the little room facing the sea.  Violet
+Hargrave, by the way, was dressed in a peasant costume.
+
+Alvedero spoke in his deep voice.  "I think, for the present, we will
+make Fonterrabia our headquarters.  It is a quiet little town, and, for
+the moment, not suspect."
+
+The Deputy-Governor of Navarre assented.  They could do great things
+from this comparatively obscure quarter.
+
+Alvedero spoke again.  "Now, first, there is the question of Guy
+Rossett.  Contraras and Lucue are agreed that he should be removed
+speedily."
+
+Moreno hastened to corroborate.  He knew that Violet Hargrave was
+watching him narrowly.  "The sooner the better," he said heartily.  "He
+knows too much."
+
+"A great deal too much!" burst in Zorrilta angrily.  "The question is,
+where did he get his information from?  Some traitor, of course."
+Moreno glanced at Violet Hargrave.  He had his suspicions of her, but
+not a muscle of her countenance moved.  His suspicions of her then were
+not confirmed.  But Violet said nothing in reply to Zorrilta's angry
+outburst.
+
+There came a diversion.  Father Gonzalo passed the window of the small
+sitting-room.  His hawklike eye peered through the window.
+
+"_Dios_!" cried Zorrilta, jumping up.  "That accursed priest again!  He
+roves about here like an evil spirit."
+
+"Who is he, this priest?" cried Moreno eagerly.  He had seen the lean
+figure of the father passing the window, and had noted the keen,
+inquisitive glance.
+
+Zorrilta explained what he had learned from the intelligent fisherman
+Somoza.  Father Gonzalo was a Jesuit, not attached to the Church of
+Santa Gadea.  He was suspected of being a spy in the pay of the
+Government.
+
+Moreno rose.  "Shall I go and sample this gentleman?" he said.  "I can
+play the role of the devout Catholic very well."
+
+Zorrilta and Alvedero grinned.  They were both nominal Catholics, but
+their religion did not trouble them very much.  They were pleased with
+the enterprising spirit of their new recruit.
+
+"Go my friend, come back and report to us."  Moreno, well pleased,
+strode out, and soon overtook the priest, who was walking leisurely.
+
+"Good evening, Father," he said pleasantly.  He also added a few Spanish
+words which were a password.
+
+When he heard those magic words, the priest's lean, ascetic face changed
+at once.
+
+"You are one of us?" he asked briefly.
+
+"Of course.  My name is Moreno.  I am attached to the English Secret
+Service, and I am helping your Government to beat the anarchists."
+
+"Good," said Father Gonzalo.  "Those people I saw you with in the little
+sitting-room at the `Concha,' I know the two well, Zorrilta and
+Alvedero; the woman I do not know.  I take it they are all anarchists.
+You are joining up with them for your own purposes."
+
+"Precisely," answered Moreno.  "Keep your eyes open too.  This is, at
+present, the headquarters of the conspiracy."
+
+"My son, good night," said the wily Jesuit in his most paternal tones.
+"We shall meet again.  You have, of course, made a good excuse for
+leaving your friends, and running after me."
+
+Moreno smiled.  "When I return I shall give the best report of you, a
+report that I trust will disarm suspicion.  But it is as well to put you
+on your guard.  You have a very keen enemy here, one Carlos Somoza, a
+fisherman.  Conciliate him, if you can."  The Jesuit's dark eyes
+flashed.  "I know him.  The dirty dog.  I will be on my guard.  I will
+go to Santa Gadea, and pray for my sins."
+
+The unctuous priest stole away.  Moreno watched his departure with a
+contemptuous smile.  He did not seem a very valiant member of the church
+militant.
+
+Moreno joined his companions.  He addressed them in his usual easy
+fashion.
+
+"Couldn't get much out of him.  I should say he was quite a harmless old
+chap, full of good works.  He seemed very concerned that I should be
+drinking at a place like the `Concha.'  He gave me some very good
+advice.  I don't think he has brains enough to be a spy."
+
+The other two men laughed.  Moreno had carried the affair off so well
+that they believed him implicitly.
+
+Then Alvedero spoke seriously.
+
+"This affair of Guy Rossett was very pressing."  He turned to Moreno and
+Violet Hargrave.  "I daresay you know that Lucue has delegated this
+matter to me, as being on the spot."
+
+The two members of this conclave of four bowed; they had gathered this
+much before they left England.
+
+"Yesterday, however, I had instructions from our great leader,
+Contraras," pursued Alvedero; he uttered the name of his chief in
+accents of profound reverence.  "The affair of Guy Rossett has, for the
+moment, sunk into comparative insignificance.  There is bigger game
+afoot."
+
+"Ah!" breathed Moreno eagerly.  True to his histrionic instinct, he was
+playing the role of enthusiast very well.
+
+Violet Hargrave, who was never very enthusiastic, thought it well to
+imitate him, and leaned forward as if eager to catch the next words from
+the great man's lips.
+
+Alvedero spoke slowly.  "As you know, in difficult times, we have to
+proceed with great caution--I cannot divulge all that Contraras has
+entrusted me with to-day.  To-morrow Valerie Delmonte will be over here!
+We will meet at the same place and the same hour."
+
+He paused, and then lifted his hands to the low roof of the mean
+sitting-room in which the four were assembled.
+
+"The brain of that man is stupendous, gigantic," he cried, in tones of
+the deepest admiration.  "My friends, he has planned a great _coup_, and
+Valerie Delmonte is going to carry it out!  She is devoted, she is
+fearless, she will not blench.  To-morrow at this hour and this place I
+will take you into the secret; it is possible one of you may be called
+upon to assist."
+
+A few minutes later the meeting broke up.  There would be an exciting
+day to-morrow, thought Moreno, as he strolled away.
+
+CHAPTER TEN.
+
+If Lord Saxham had been, in his heart, disappointed that he could not
+induce Isobel to cajole her lover away from his post, he was too much a
+gentleman to go back on his word.  Besides, he recognised that in this
+instance the girl was right, and he wrong, that she had displayed a
+nobility of spirit which was lacking in himself and his daughter.
+
+He had given his consent to the engagement without imposing conditions,
+and he could not in honour take that consent back.  In addition, he
+could not but feel a whole-hearted admiration for a woman who could
+sacrifice her own feelings, not to mention her own interests, in such an
+unselfish fashion.
+
+The immediate result of the brief visit to Ticehurst Park was the
+despatch of a paragraph to the various papers announcing the engagement
+of Mr Guy Rossett, second son of the Earl of Saxham, to Miss Clandon,
+daughter of General Clandon.
+
+When father and daughter arrived at their modest home in Eastbourne, the
+news was public property.  Letters of congratulation came by every post
+from the numerous friends and acquaintances whom they had made during
+their long sojourn in the town.
+
+Isobel could now openly wear that beautiful ring which hitherto she had
+only dared to look upon in secret--that expensive ring which, as a
+matter of fact, had been purchased from money supplied by the obliging
+Mr Jackson.  For, at the actual moment when the General had given his
+consent to the engagement, Guy had been extremely hard up.
+
+So now all was plain sailing.  Isobel was very proud of her lover,
+naturally very delighted at her adoption into the Saxham family.  But,
+as there is no happiness without alloy, the knowledge of that lover's
+danger weighed terribly upon her spirits, and caused her to shed many
+bitter tears.
+
+Her little world which congratulated and fussed around her, of course,
+knew nothing of this.  To the girls of her own age, girls moving in
+respectable but middle-class circles, who knew nothing of the
+aristocracy except through the fashionable papers, she was greatly to be
+envied.
+
+There was one amongst the numerous letters of congratulations which had
+touched her very deeply.  It was written by her cousin, Maurice
+Farquhar.  It was couched in rather stiff, sometimes stilted
+phraseology, but sincerity was in every line.  And, if Maurice was a bit
+priggish and old-fashioned, he was always a gentleman.
+
+He had made no allusion to his own disappointed hopes.  He had
+congratulated her heartily on her engagement, expressed his conviction
+that she would adorn any station to which she was called.  And the
+letter had concluded with these words.
+
+"I know the danger that is threatening your fiance.  Moreno has promised
+to let me know if I can help him.  I do not fancy it will ever be in my
+power to render any valuable assistance; our paths in life do not seem
+to meet anywhere.  Still, if the time does come, I shall do my best,
+from my own cousinly affection for you."
+
+It was put frankly but gracefully.  He did not care twopence for Guy
+Rossett.  It was not to be expected that he would.  But he would be a
+friend to Rossett, because he still loved Isobel.  She laid down the
+letter with a little sigh.  So short a time as two years ago, Maurice
+might have satisfied her maiden dreams, she was not quite sure.  She was
+so wrapped in the present that she could hardly see the past in its
+proper proportions.  Anyway, she could reckon on her cousin in the
+future as a true and loyal friend.
+
+Her heart was very much with Guy in that dangerous post at Madrid, her
+thoughts ever.  One night when the two were sitting alone in the
+General's cosy little den, a little cry escaped her.
+
+"Somehow, I seem to hate Eastbourne!  It is very ungrateful, considering
+how happy I have been here.  But I do so long to be near Guy."
+
+The General was very moved by that pathetic cry.  He stirred uneasily in
+his chair.
+
+"Of course you wish it, my darling.  I daresay Lady Mary wishes the
+same.  But, if you were both there, neither of you could do him the
+least good, nor avert any danger that is threatening him."
+
+"Oh, I recognise that," said Isobel, wiping the tears from her eyes.
+"It is the suspense that is so horrible.  If one were near, one might
+know something of what is going on."
+
+The General thought for a moment or two before he spoke.  He had
+indulged every whim, forestalled every wish of his dear wife.  He had
+done the same with his daughter since the day when he had found himself
+a widower, and they had been all in all to each other.
+
+He smiled a little sadly.  "I am afraid we old men become a sad burden
+on our dutiful children, exact too much from them," he said presently.
+"Lady Mary would love to be near Guy, and she cannot leave her father.
+And you, my poor little girl, are in the same plight."
+
+Isobel laid her soft cheek against his.  "Oh, Daddy, dearest Daddy, it
+is not very kind to say that.  However great my love for Guy, it can
+never supersede my love for you."
+
+The General patted her head fondly.  "Ah, my dear, the curse of a small
+family; we have always been all too much to each other."  Then he spoke
+briskly; he waited to make her happier than she was.
+
+"I see no reason, though, why we could not go to Madrid together.  We
+could do it by easy stages, and, by gad, Madrid would be a change.  I am
+very fond of Eastbourne, but we have had a good bit of it.  I think I
+will go and see our old Doctor Jones to-morrow."
+
+But Isobel would not hear of it.  Her father had suffered from heart
+affection in his youth.  During the last five years it had become very
+acute.  He must live a quiet, well-ordered life, avoid any undue
+exertion.  His daughter had gathered from Dr Jones that the General's
+life held by a very frail thread.  The summons might come at any moment.
+
+Nevertheless, General Clandon was round at the doctor's door by ten
+o'clock the next morning.  He was bent upon falling in with Isobel's
+desire.
+
+The doctor stared at him.  He had always been summoned to the General's
+house; not half a dozen times had his patient come to him.
+
+"What's up?" he inquired tersely.  "The heart not troubling you more
+than usual, I hope?"
+
+To look at General Clandon, as he stood in the surgery, a fine
+upstanding figure of a man, you would have said he was free from all
+human ailments.  Nobody could have guessed that he carried in that
+stalwart frame the seeds of a mortal disease that, at any moment, might
+lay him low.
+
+"No, no more than usual.  But yes, I think the palpitations are a little
+more frequent the last week or two."
+
+"Let me run the rule over you."  Doctor Jones produced his stethoscope.
+"Why didn't you send for me before?"
+
+"Just a moment, my good old friend, before you begin.  Isobel
+particularly wants to go to Spain for reasons you can guess--her
+fiance's there.  I can't let her go without me, unless I could lay my
+hands upon a suitable chaperon.  I want you to tell me if you will give
+me permission to go with her myself.  I should take the journey in easy
+stages, of course."
+
+There was a very wistful look in the old man's eyes as he uttered the
+last words; it seemed as if he were pleading for permission to gratify
+his daughter's wish.
+
+"Isobel, of course, won't hear of it, after what you have told me; she
+did not know I was coming here.  But if you could give your sanction, it
+would make us both very happy," he added hastily, as he began to
+unbutton his coat.
+
+Jones had been an army doctor, and he was very sympathetic.  It was very
+pathetic, this poor old father with almost two feet in the grave,
+begging a little further respite from death.
+
+"I will see what we can do, as soon as I have examined you," he said
+kindly.  "If it is humanly possible for you to go, I will let you go,
+for Isobel's sake."
+
+The examination was a searching and lengthy one.  When it was finished,
+Doctor Jones laid down his stethoscope with a little sigh.
+
+"My dear General, it is impossible.  You are a brave man, you have faced
+death more than once on the battlefield, and you have always asked me to
+tell you the truth.  If you undertake that voyage, you are committing
+suicide."
+
+"You don't give me very long then?" asked the General quietly.  The
+doctor shrugged his shoulders and turned his head away.  He could not
+quite put it in words.
+
+"You have had some extra excitement lately?  Great inroads have been
+made since I last examined you."
+
+"Yes," answered General Clandon quietly, "there has been a good deal of
+excitement lately."
+
+It was true.  The uncertain position of Isobel as regards her
+engagement, the hurried visit to Ticehurst Park, the danger overhanging
+Guy Rossett had agitated him very much.
+
+He returned home very crestfallen.  He had hoped against hope for the
+doctor's favourable verdict.  He had longed to be able to say to her:
+"It is all right, I will take you to Spain myself."
+
+But in the face of those grave words it was impossible to say it.  It
+would be no benefit to her to take her out, and die before they got to
+the end of the journey.
+
+Isobel met him in the hall of their pretty little home, half villa, half
+cottage.
+
+"Why, where in the world have you been?" she cried, "running away at
+this early hour of the morning?"
+
+They lived such an intimate and domestic life, that it was almost a
+point of honour to give notice of each other's movements.
+
+The General was a bad dissembler.  He blurted it all out at once.
+
+"To tell you the truth, I wanted to take you out to Spain.  I went round
+to see Jones, to learn what he said about it.  He forbids it."
+
+She looked at him anxiously.  Yes, he seemed to have aged even the last
+week.  A spasm of reproach shot through her that she had not been
+quicker to notice his failing health.  Guy had usurped her thoughts too
+much.
+
+"But I don't think it will be difficult to arrange.  I can soon get hold
+of some female dragon, some elderly chaperon who will take you."
+
+The girl's eyes filled with tears.  Not for the first time did she
+appreciate that unselfish parental love, the love that gives everything,
+and asks so little in return.
+
+She kissed him very tenderly.  "No, no, a thousand times no, you kindest
+of all kind fathers.  Until you get well and strong again, I would not
+leave you for a thousand lovers."
+
+He patted her hand.  He was the most unselfish of men, but it pleased
+him very much to hear her say that much.  The stranger who had come into
+her life was not going to oust the old father from his place in her
+heart.
+
+"We have been so much to each other, little girl, since your dear mother
+died, have we not?" he asked gently.
+
+"More than so much," she whispered back.  "Oh, more than so much.  We
+have been everything to each other."  At that moment even her lover was
+almost forgotten.  A few hours later, she stole out of the house, and
+called on the doctor.
+
+"My father is worse," she said impetuously, when she entered the
+consulting-room.
+
+Doctor Jones looked very grave.  "My dear child, he is as bad as he can
+be.  I have warned you before.  The end may come at any moment."
+
+"And yet it only seems yesterday that he was out shooting--of course I
+know it is months ago--and when he came back, I used to ask him if he
+was tired, and he always told me he never felt more fit in his life.
+And a big, strong man in appearance!  A few weeks ago he did not look
+his age."
+
+"It is frequently the way with this particular disease," was the
+doctor's reply.  "They hang on for years, with a sort of spurious
+energy, and then, all of a sudden, they go--snap."
+
+"Will he suffer much, do you think?" asked Isobel, bravely keeping back
+the tears.
+
+"Don't trouble yourself about that.  He will go out like the snuff of a
+candle.  Take my word for it, he will not suffer."
+
+He accompanied her to the door; he had become very attached to the
+pair--the charming girl devoted to her father, the elderly man who
+worshipped his daughter.
+
+"Keep a brave heart, my child.  It may come to-night, to-morrow.  He is
+worse than I thought."  And three days after that interview with the
+kindly doctor the end came.
+
+The housemaid went into his room with his morning cup of tea.  The poor
+old General was lying on his side, his face quite placid.  But the girl
+knew that the pallor on it was the hue of death.  She ran sobbing to
+Isobel's room.
+
+"Miss, miss!  Come at once to the General."  Isobel guessed immediately
+what that summons meant.  She sprang out of bed and went to her father's
+room.  One glance at the white, placid face confirmed her worst fears.
+She sent the frightened girl for the doctor.  He came, and was able to
+ease her mind in one respect--her beloved father had died peacefully,
+without a struggle.
+
+The charming little home which had sheltered her for so many years was a
+house of mourning.  She thought tearfully of his loving kindness, of the
+many self-sacrifices he had made to give her some small comfort, some
+little luxury.  Even from a devoted husband, would she ever have such a
+disinterested love as that?--the love that gives all and asks nothing.
+
+But she was a soldier's daughter, and she braced herself to go through
+the ordeal, the most trying of all ordeals to affectionate hearts, the
+removal of the beloved dead.
+
+She first sent a wire to Maurice Farquhar, asking him to come to her.
+Then she sent another wire to the General's elder brother, the owner of
+the small family estates.
+
+In two hours came back her cousin's answer.
+
+"Am catching an early train."
+
+The Squire's answer came back about the same time.  "Will be with you
+to-morrow morning."  And then she thought of a quite new, but very
+sincere friend.  Lady Mary Rossett.  She wired to her the sad news.  To
+Guy she wrote a long letter.  If she had sent him a wire, he might have
+rushed over, and neglected his duties.  That would have rendered no
+service to the dead.
+
+Lady Mary arrived first in her car--it was not a very long run from
+Ticehurst Park to Eastbourne.  She explained that she had taken rooms at
+the "Queen's" for herself and her maid, and would see Isobel through
+this trying ordeal.
+
+The two girls clung together.  Mary said she would like to look upon the
+General for the last time.  Isobel led her into the darkened chamber,
+and Mary imprinted a kiss upon the waxen brow.
+
+"He was a most perfect gentleman," she said.  "You will always be proud
+to remember that you were his daughter."
+
+"He was the dearest and the best.  He was--"
+
+But Isobel could say no more, for fear she should break down.
+
+A few moments after Mary's arrival came Farquhar, lumbering up from the
+station in a somewhat antiquated taxi.
+
+Isobel welcomed him warmly.  "How good of you, Maurice, to come so soon,
+and of course you are frightfully busy.  I am afraid grief makes one
+very selfish."
+
+"I don't think you were ever very selfish, Isobel," replied Farquhar in
+his grave, quiet tones.  "I am, as you say, frightfully busy, but I have
+handed over all my briefs to a friend, and I am going to see you through
+all this sad business.  I suppose you have wired to the Head of the
+Family?"
+
+Isobel's lip curled a little.  "Yes, I have wired to the Head of the
+Family.  I have got his answer.  He is coming down to-morrow.  My true
+friends are here to-day, yourself, and Lady Mary Rossett.  By the way,
+how remiss of me not to have introduced you."
+
+Lady Mary rose, and held out her hand to the rising young barrister.
+
+"But, dear Isobel, we have met before, on that well-remembered evening
+at the Savoy.  You will no doubt recollect, Mr Farquhar, you were
+dining with a very dark-complexioned gentleman, evidently a foreigner."
+
+"Of course, I remember perfectly.  The man who was my guest is my old
+friend Andres Moreno, a very capable journalist."
+
+Lady Mary looked approvingly at the grave young barrister.  Her heart
+was, of course, buried in the grave of the young Guardsman, but she felt
+a pleasurable thrill in this new acquaintance.  There was something in
+his sedate demeanour that appealed to her practical and well-ordered
+nature--a nature that was apt occasionally to be disturbed by
+tempestuous and romantic moods.
+
+"Where are you putting up?" asked Lady Mary casually.
+
+"At the `Queen's,'" answered Farquhar.
+
+"Oh, so am I.  I have taken a suite of rooms for myself and maid, while
+I am looking after dear Isobel.  But it will be a little bit dull.  Are
+you dining in the general room?"
+
+"I certainly shall--unless--" Farquhar looked towards Isobel.
+
+Poor Isobel looked very distressed.  "You are both such darlings," she
+said, in her candid, impulsive way.  "I should like to put you both up,
+to ask you to stay.  But I shall be such poor company for you."
+
+They both understood.  The bereaved girl wanted to be left alone with
+her dead, for that day at least.  She welcomed their sympathy, but they
+could not mourn with her whole-hearted mourning.
+
+Farquhar and Lady Mary drove back in the car to the "Queen's."  Farquhar
+suggested tea.  Lady Mary accepted the invitation willingly.  There was
+something about this serious young barrister that attracted her.
+
+Over the teacups they chatted.
+
+"Tell me, are you going to be Lord Chancellor some day?  You have plenty
+of time."
+
+It was Lady Mary who put the question.  Farquhar caught the spirit of
+her gay humour.
+
+"Oh, no, nothing so stupendous as that.  In my wildest dreams, I have
+never aspired to be anything higher than Solicitor or Attorney-General.
+I shall probably end by being a police magistrate, and cultivate a
+reputation for saying smart things."
+
+"Oh, but I shall be quite disappointed in you if you don't become Lord
+Chancellor," persisted Lady Mary, in her most girlish vein.  "How
+dreadfully ancient we shall both be when you reach that exalted
+position.  And then, think of your wife, she will be the first female
+subject in the kingdom.  The Archbishop of Canterbury's wife doesn't
+count at all, although the Archbishop goes before you.  Isn't it
+comical?"
+
+Farquhar fell in with her humorous mood.  They had come from the house
+of mourning, but the poor old General had been very little to them.  It
+was Isobel who stirred a generous chord of sympathy in their hearts.
+And Isobel was young, she had a lover, and she would recover shortly.
+The young do not mourn for ever after the old.  Such is the inexorable
+law of nature.
+
+They met again at dinner.  The good understanding, begun at tea, was
+further cemented.
+
+"You are going to be a sort of relation, in addition to being at least
+Attorney-General, or a police magistrate, or something of that sort,"
+said Lady Mary at the conclusion of the meal.  "Do you shoot?"
+
+"I can account for a few," replied Farquhar, in his usual modest and
+cautious manner.
+
+"Then you must come to Ticehurst Park in the autumn.  I shall send you
+the invitation."
+
+"And your friends will be welcomed by Lord Saxham?"
+
+Lady Mary smiled quite a brilliant smile.  "I may tell you in confidence
+that my dear old father is as wax in my hands.  Are you satisfied with
+that?"
+
+Yes, Farquhar felt quite satisfied.  But he thought of the
+grief-stricken girl keeping her lonely vigil in that quiet home, and his
+heart was very sore for her.
+
+Still the world went on, and here was a very charming woman, not perhaps
+quite so youthful as Isobel, who was showing very plainly that she had
+taken an interest in him.  The world was a very pleasant place.
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN.
+
+The Head of the Family arrived next day.  He was a very stolid and
+bucolic-looking person, a breeder of prize oxen and fat sheep.  He
+commiserated with poor Isobel in a heavy fashion.
+
+"Strange thing going off like that," he commented.  "We are a very
+long-lived family.  But your father was always a little bit different
+from the rest of us when he was a boy."
+
+Isobel said nothing in reply.  She had seen several members of her
+father's family at rare intervals, and she had not been greatly
+impressed by them.  The only one she had really liked was Mrs Farquhar,
+the mother of her Cousin Maurice.  She was a sweet, charming woman, the
+favourite sister of her dead father.
+
+Mr Clandon fingered his moustache a little nervously.  "I suppose you
+know all about his affairs, my dear?  He has left you comfortably off,
+eh?  He came into quite a tidy little bit when my father died."
+
+Isobel smiled faintly.  Mr Clandon wanted to be assured that he was not
+going to have a penniless niece thrust upon his hands.  She knew all
+about her father's affairs.  Had not the dear old General spent hours in
+instructing her as to the careful management of her small patrimony,
+when anything happened to him?
+
+"Quite comfortably off, uncle, thanks to his loving care.  With my
+simple wants, I shall be rich."
+
+"Very relieved to hear it," said the bucolic Mr Clandon.  "And, of
+course, you are going to marry a rich man.  Lord Saxham, I understand,
+is one of the wealthiest peers in England."
+
+"Reported to be," corrected Isobel gently.  "The estates are very
+heavily encumbered, and there are living three dowagers, and other
+pensioners who draw their portions."
+
+"God bless me," said Mr Clandon, who was a very thrifty person.  "What
+a frightful incubus!  Then I take it your fiance won't get very much
+from that quarter?"
+
+"Very little, I expect.  But he will inherit a large fortune from his
+great-aunt, Lady Henrietta, a very old lady, over eighty."
+
+The Head of the Family looked relieved.  He gazed with a certain
+respectful admiration at his good-looking niece.  He had always
+recognised that she was a very pretty girl.  At the present moment,
+grief had made great inroads on her good looks.  But he thought somewhat
+sorrowfully of his own large family of girls, who were rather of the
+dumpling-faced order.  They would have to seek their mates amongst the
+small squirearchy.
+
+"I suppose my poor brother made a will?" was Mr Clandon's next
+question.
+
+"Oh, yes, he made his will years ago, after my mother's death," was
+Isobel's answer.  "He left her everything.  When she died, he left me
+everything."
+
+"Quite right and proper," observed Mr Clandon.  He was very dull, but
+quite an upright and just person.  He was relieved to find that his
+brother was more business-like than he thought.  "And he has appointed
+executors, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, two--a very old friend, and my cousin, Maurice Farquhar."
+
+"Ah, Maurice Farquhar, Anne's son!  Yes, of course, your father and Anne
+were always great comrades.  Maurice is getting on very well at the bar,
+I hear.  You have seen a lot of him, I suppose.  Somehow, we seemed to
+lose sight of Anne.  We were such a big family, you know; and big
+families get scattered."
+
+Uncle Clandon had not the delicacy of Maurice or Lady Mary.  He
+cordially accepted Isobel's invitation to put him up.  He was a very
+thrifty and careful person, and had no fancy to waste his money in
+expensive hotels, now that he knew his niece was left comfortably off.
+
+The General was buried amongst his forbears in the family vault.  When
+the sad business was over, Lady Mary took Isobel away to Ticehurst Park.
+
+Guy Rossett had rushed over for the funeral, but he was so engrossed in
+diplomatic affairs that he had to leave immediately after.
+
+The lovers had little time to say anything to each other.  But Isobel
+was very much touched with Guy's delicate feeling.
+
+"Wasn't he a darling to come over?" she said to Lady Mary.  "I should
+have forgiven him if he hadn't, but I love him ever so much more because
+he did."
+
+To which somewhat incoherent declaration Mary had replied with her usual
+air of experience and worldly wisdom.
+
+"All men have something bad in them, and most women.  But I think dear
+old Guy has the least bad in him that a man can have."
+
+Lord Saxham was very kind, very gentle, very paternal to his son's
+betrothed.  He had only seen General Clandon once, and he could not
+pretend to feel any great interest in him.  But that sudden death
+reminded him that he also was nearing the goal.  The remembrance of that
+fact softened, at least temporarily, his asperities, curbed his
+explosive temper.
+
+The two girls were sitting in Mary's cosy little boudoir.  It was a very
+charming room, reflecting in every detail the delicate and
+discriminating taste of the young _chatelaine_.
+
+"Mary, I can never go back to Eastbourne.  I loved that little home so
+much while he was there.  But now it would be torture.  I should see him
+in every room, and I should want to cry out to him and he could not
+speak to me.  Oh, I don't think you can guess what we were to each
+other."
+
+"Have you thought of anything, dear?" asked Mary in her kind, gentle
+voice.  She knew the girl was half hysterical with her sorrow.
+
+"I should so love to go to Spain to be near Guy.  Did I tell you dear
+father wanted to take me himself, only a few days before he died, and
+the doctor forbade him.  Oh, Mary, if you could only come too?"
+
+"I would love to," said Mary slowly.  "But you know as well as I do that
+my duty lies here.  My father is old, I dare not leave him, and, in
+spite of his little faults of temper, he has been a dear, kind parent."
+
+"I understand perfectly," was Isobel's answer.  "But, you see, nothing
+now ties me to England.  All the world meant to me only two people, my
+father and Guy.  Now, only Guy is left.  I would love to be near him,
+even if he did not know."  Mary pondered a little.  "I wonder if that
+nice cousin of yours could help in the matter?"
+
+Isobel caught at the suggestion at once.  "Yes, he is very clever.  I
+will go up and see him to-morrow."
+
+"No need for that, dear.  I will send him a wire at once, asking him to
+come down to-morrow to see you."
+
+"But he is always so frightfully busy," cried Isobel.
+
+"Bah!" said the more practical Lady Mary.  "I know he is going to do
+wonderful things in the future, but he has plenty of time.  When I send
+him that wire, he will come."
+
+Lady Mary sent off the telegram.  It was quite a little excitement in
+her usually placid life.  Farquhar came down as quickly as he could.  He
+had handed over his briefs to a friend.
+
+Lord Saxham greeted him kindly, being apprised by his daughter of his
+arrival.  The poor old Earl was very subdued by now; he was quite
+prepared to make any amount of new acquaintances.  His daughter had
+affairs well in hand.
+
+Lady Mary plunged into matters at once.
+
+"Isobel doesn't want to go back to Eastbourne--that is quite natural.
+She is eager to go to Spain, to be near Guy.  Of course nothing binds
+her to this country now."
+
+Mr Farquhar was not to be hurried.  His judicial mind, if it worked a
+little slowly, also worked very surely.
+
+"I should not say that, at the present moment, Spain was a very
+desirable country for anybody, still less so for a young and unprotected
+woman."  He looked rather disapprovingly at Isobel for having harboured
+such daring thoughts.
+
+"I shall take a maid, one of the servants we had at Eastbourne," said
+Isobel, in a rather quaking voice.  She had sense enough to see that, at
+the best, it was a wild venture.
+
+Lady Mary shot at him an appealing glance.  "Don't you think you had
+better let Isobel have her way?  And I expect she will have it whether
+you approve or not."
+
+There was also a little something more in that glance than Mary was
+quite conscious of.  And the little something was this: Why was Maurice
+Farquhar so foolishly in love with Isobel, while Isobel was so devoted
+to Guy Rossett?
+
+Farquhar looked from the younger to the elder girl.  Lady Mary was very
+comely, she had behind her a long line of illustrious ancestry.  She had
+been very sweet and gracious to him.
+
+"Do you approve this rather daring scheme, Lady Mary?"
+
+"On the whole, I think I do.  Of course, I recognise the objections to
+it.  But Isobel cannot go back to Eastbourne.  If she stays in England
+she will be eating her heart out."
+
+Farquhar was, perhaps unconsciously, swayed by Lady Mary.  He made up
+his mind to regard the suggestion with some degree of favour.
+
+"I will do all I can to help.  Unfortunately, I know next to nothing of
+Spain.  But I have a friend who knows it from A to Z.  I will write to
+him and see how I can get her planted there."
+
+Of course, Lady Mary knew that Moreno was the friend.  Isobel thanked
+him warmly.
+
+"How sweet and dear of you," she said.  "Of course you understand, now
+my dear father is gone, there is nothing left but Guy."
+
+Farquhar understood.  His cousin had spoken with the unconscious cruelty
+of the self-centred lover.  She had not considered Maurice's feelings at
+all.
+
+Farquhar rose.  "I will write the letter at once, if you will permit
+me."  He turned to Lady Mary, who led him to a small morning-room, and
+spread paper and envelopes before him.
+
+"You are very fond of Isobel?" he asked, before he began his letter, a
+rather long one, to Moreno.
+
+"I love her like a younger sister, Mr Farquhar," replied Mary
+enthusiastically.  "And, of course, she very soon will be my sister.
+And, moreover, being a woman, I love all true lovers.  She and Guy are
+so absorbed in each other."
+
+"Ah!" said the youthful barrister shortly.  "And you love your brother
+too?"
+
+"Dear old Guy!  I simply adore him.  He is one of the most lovable of
+men."
+
+Farquhar looked at her a little quizzically.  "You have, I should say, a
+most beautiful nature; you see good in everything and everybody, don't
+you?"  Lady Mary shook her head.  "No.  I am more discriminating than
+you think.  I fancy I can always tell the false from the true."
+
+"I wonder how you would reckon me up?"
+
+"I will tell you, if you really wish," was Mary's candid answer.
+
+"Yes, I do wish, honestly."
+
+"You are frightfully, painfully just.  You are terribly cautious.
+And--" She paused, and a faint blush spread over her cheek.
+
+"Don't spoil it, please.  Finish what you were going to say.  I can see
+you are a very discerning critic."
+
+Mary was a long time before she would answer.  Then she turned away, and
+her blush deepened.
+
+"I should say loyalty and honesty were your greatest characteristics.
+That you would be a sincere friend and a very generous enemy."
+
+She was leaving the room, but Farquhar darted up and detained her.
+
+"I say, you know, that is the very greatest compliment I have ever had
+paid me," he said, roused from his usual impassivity.  "Will you think I
+am taking a liberty if I suggest that we shake hands on it?"
+
+"Oh, not at all," said Mary, in a rather fluttering way, as she put her
+hand in his.
+
+She left the room, and he set about to write his letter to Moreno.  But
+the disturbing vision of Lady Mary, with that faint flush on her cheek,
+appeared several times between the sentences of the rather lengthy
+epistle.  That letter went out by the evening post.
+
+About the same time that these events were happening at the Park,
+Ferdinand Contraras was taking farewell of his family.  He explained to
+them that he was going to Spain, he could not say how long he would be
+away.  It might be a few days, it might be weeks.  He had left plenty of
+money in the bank for their needs.
+
+His wife and daughter watched him out of the house without any signs of
+emotion.  To these two, who should have been his nearest and dearest, he
+had long appeared as a man out of touch with realities.
+
+When the car rolled out of sight, Madame Contraras turned to her
+daughter.
+
+"I have a presentiment, Inez, he will never come back.  He is going to
+give his life as well as his fortune to this insane cause."
+
+Inez, who was rather callous, shrugged her shapely shoulders.  "Why did
+you marry him, mother?  He must have been mad then."
+
+"The madness of strong, impetuous youth, my child.  I never thought it
+would last through middle and old age."
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE.
+
+Contraras embarked on his great mission.  Elderly man as he was, the
+fire of his convictions kept him alert and youthful.
+
+He stayed a day in Madrid; from thence he travelled to Barcelona.  And
+then he went on to Fonterrabia.
+
+In the same little cafe, the "Concha," he met several members of the
+brotherhood, Zorrilta, specially summoned, Alvedero, Andres Moreno,
+Violet Hargrave, and Mademoiselle Delmonte.
+
+He opened the proceedings in his sharp, autocratic way.  "You have
+already had a meeting about this particular _coup_ which I planned in
+London."
+
+The young Frenchwoman spoke eagerly.  If ever there was an enthusiast in
+the sacred cause, she was one.  Ready to be burned or hanged for her
+principles, she had the spirit of the early Christian martyrs.
+
+"We know all about it, Contraras."  In the spirit of true democracy,
+they addressed each other by no formal prefix.  "I have undertaken it.
+It probably means death to me, I can only escape by a miracle, but it
+also means death to our enemies."
+
+Contraras looked at her approvingly from under his bushy eyebrows.
+"There spoke a true daughter of the Revolution which is to remake the
+world.  If years had not come upon me, if my eyesight were more keen, my
+hand more sure, I would not delegate this task to another, less
+especially to a woman."
+
+Zorrilta hastened to observe obsequiously, "We cannot afford to hazard
+your precious life, Contraras.  You are the head and brain of this
+organisation.  The general directs the battle from safe ground.  He does
+not go into the firing-line like the common soldier."
+
+Contraras smiled, well pleased.  Like most great men, he was very
+susceptible to flattery, as easily susceptible as the most despotic
+monarch that ever ruled.
+
+"I appreciate your devotion to the cause, your loyalty to myself," he
+said in his most gracious manner.  "When this great blow is struck, when
+we make a most terrible example, the echoes of it will reverberate
+through the world.  The downtrodden population will arise, the
+world-revolution will be in being."
+
+There was a subdued murmur of applause at the conclusion of his speech.
+Moreno applauded the loudest; somehow Violet Hargrave could never force
+herself to be very enthusiastic.  Moreno was watching her very narrowly.
+
+Mademoiselle Delmonte spoke.  "I cannot say how proud I am to have had
+this task deputed to me."  She looked very brave and resolute.
+
+The meeting lasted for over half an hour.  Details of the great _coup_
+were settled.  Contraras had a powerful and logical brain.  He never
+allowed digressions or diversions, he always kept everybody to the
+point.  When the meeting broke up two people were very radiant,
+Contraras, who had planned the _coup_, the enthusiastic Valerie
+Delmonte, who had undertaken to carry it into execution, with or without
+assistance, as might be determined.
+
+They strolled out from the obscure little cafe one by one.  Moreno
+presently overtook Mrs Hargrave, in her peasant dress.  They lodged
+near each other; it was natural they should stroll along together in the
+direction of their respective homes.
+
+Behind them came Contraras, and the two other men who had joined forces
+after leaving the cafe.  Contraras looked after the two young people
+with those keen eyes which age had not very greatly dimmed.
+
+"The Englishwoman I know well," he whispered to Alvedero.  "She is a
+protegee, almost an adopted daughter, of our staunch comrade Jaques.
+What about this Moreno?  Is he to be trusted?"
+
+"You know that Lucue vouches for both."
+
+"Ah!" sighed Contraras.  "Lucue is a keen judge of men.  I have never
+known him make a mistake.  But I do not like the English mother."
+
+"And, in the case of Violet Hargrave, you have the English father.  And
+yet, you have no suspicion of her."
+
+Contraras nodded his massive head, the head with the broad, deep brow of
+the thinker.
+
+"Your remark is just, my friend.  I chose Violet Hargrave myself, on the
+recommendation of my friend Jaques; that, of course, prejudices me in
+her favour.  Moreno was chosen by Lucue.  Perhaps I am a little bit
+jealous of Lucue.  And I am growing old."
+
+"No," cried Alvedero, with whole-hearted admiration.  "Give you another
+ten years yet, and you will still be the brains and leading spirit of
+this organisation.  Zorrilta is good, Lucue has a touch of genius.  But
+there is only one Contraras.  Ten years hence you will be our leader, as
+you are to-day."  And while Contraras and Alvedero were exchanging these
+confidences, Moreno was talking to Violet Hargrave.
+
+"We seem to be engaged in a pretty bloodthirsty business, don't you
+think, Mrs Hargrave?  Not much in common with Fleet Street, or the flat
+in Mount Street, eh?"
+
+Violet Hargrave smiled.  "We have both come out here to find adventure.
+Spain is a land of surprises.  We shall have plenty of adventure before
+we have done with it."
+
+There was a grim note in the journalist's tones, as he answered: "On
+this particular _coup_, engineered by our great leader, Contraras, it
+seems to me as likely as not that you and I shall meet our deaths.  The
+one person who seems perfectly happy over the business is Mademoiselle
+Delmonte.  By the way, she went out the first.  She must have flown
+along like the wind.  The others are behind.  I can see them through the
+back of my head.  I can wager they are just discussing whether we can be
+trusted--you, with your English father, I, with my English mother."
+
+He shot at her a penetrating glance, but she did not move a muscle.
+
+"The southern blood in both is stronger than the northern," she answered
+calmly.  "And we are each a true son and daughter of the Revolution."
+
+He came to the conclusion that, for the moment, Violet Hargrave was
+impenetrable.  Would he ever be able to disturb that _sang-froid_?
+
+When he reached his humble lodgings, for it was a part of his role to
+live plainly, he found a long letter from his old friend, Maurice
+Farquhar.
+
+It was the letter that had been written from Ticehurst Park.  It
+explained at great length that Isobel Clandon had lost her father, that
+there were no longer any ties to bind her to England, that she wanted to
+be near her lover, in view of the danger that threatened him.  Above
+all, that she did not wish Guy to know, at any rate for the present.
+Could Moreno help?
+
+The young man knitted his brows.  His first impulse was to write back
+and strongly oppose the scheme.  Then his subtle mind began to work,
+half unconsciously.  Isobel Clandon over in Madrid could do no harm.  He
+would not prophesy that she would do any good.  But there was no knowing
+what might happen with this bloodthirsty brotherhood.  She might be
+useful.
+
+He knew an English couple living in Madrid, old connections of his
+mother; he was sure they would willingly take in Isobel as a boarder.
+They were not rich people, only just in comfortable circumstances, they
+were elderly and childless.  They would welcome a young girl as a member
+of their household.
+
+He would go to Madrid to-morrow and interview them.  And he could kill
+two birds with one stone while he was there.
+
+He interviewed the elderly couple; they would be delighted to receive
+Miss Clandon.
+
+Afterwards, in response to a letter received at the Embassy, Guy Rossett
+met the young journalist in the same obscure restaurant in Madrid, where
+he had met him previously.
+
+"Things are humming a bit, eh?" queried Moreno, as they sat at a small
+table, quaffing a bottle of light wine.
+
+"Looks like it," answered Rossett, speaking with the usual English
+phlegm.  "I've had some very important information over to-day."
+
+"Most of which, I expect, has been supplied by me, not but what I admit
+there are two or three very good men out on the job."  Moreno was
+dreadfully conceited, but he could be generous when he chose.  He would
+sometimes allow that there were other people who might be--well, nearly
+as clever as himself.
+
+"Well, Moreno, you wanted to see me.  I take it, you have a reason?"
+
+"Of course I have.  I know you ultimately hear everything from
+headquarters.  But that takes time, and I am on the spot."
+
+"I know all that," said Rossett.  "Besides, I have instructions from
+headquarters to keep in touch with you, because you _are_ on the spot."
+
+"That is really awfully good of them, when you come to think of it,"
+said Moreno in his quiet, sarcastic way.  "Fancy them relaxing red tape
+to that extent!  I fancy there is a new spirit abroad."
+
+"Well, what is it?" asked Rossett a little impatiently.
+
+Moreno puffed at his cigar a little time before he answered.
+
+"I am going to put a very direct question to you.  Some time ago you
+gave some very important information to the Secret Service about this
+anarchist movement.  It is due to that that you are here."
+
+"Yes, I did," answered Guy shortly.
+
+"You know we are both practically in the same service," said Moreno
+slowly, "and we might be frank with each other.  Was that information
+given under the seal of secrecy?"
+
+Guy nodded.  "Yes, it was, absolutely."
+
+"As an honourable man, you could not reveal the name of your informant?
+I can give you my word, it is very important."
+
+Guy thought for a few seconds.  "No, I cannot give you the name of my
+informant.  It was done absolutely under the seal of secrecy."
+
+"I understand," said Moreno.  "And a very considerable price was paid to
+the man--or woman--I am convinced it was a woman, who sold you this
+information."
+
+"Quite right.  But why do you say it was a woman?" asked Guy Rossett
+quickly.
+
+"If I had not already been sure it was a woman, my friend, I should be
+quite sure of it by your sudden question.  You English people are not
+quite so subtle as we who have southern blood in our veins."
+
+Rossett bit his lip.  He felt he had given himself away to this
+quick-witted foreigner, nine-tenths Spanish and one-tenth English.
+
+There was a long pause.  Moreno shifted his point of attack.
+
+"Do you know that Mrs Hargrave is over in Spain, in Fonterrabia?"
+
+"What!" almost shouted Guy in his astonishment.
+
+Moreno looked at him steadily.  "Ah, you have not heard that from
+headquarters.  Well, you see, they don't know the little side-currents
+as well as I do.  They do not know, for instance, that she is a sworn
+and apparently zealous member of the brotherhood."
+
+"Violet Hargrave, of all people!" cried Rossett.  He was in a state of
+bewilderment.
+
+"You know, I daresay, that Mrs Hargrave is no friend of yours now,
+whatever she may have been once," said Moreno, speaking in his quiet,
+level tones.
+
+"Yes, I think I can understand that."
+
+"Come, Mr Rossett, throw off a little of that insular reserve, and let
+us talk together quite frankly.  Believe me, I am speaking entirely in
+your own interests.  There is no doubt that, at one time, you paid Mrs
+Hargrave very marked attention, that you fed her hopes very high."
+
+"I was a bit of a fool, certainly," admitted Guy.
+
+"And then, pardon me for speaking quite frankly, you threw her over
+rather abruptly, because you had fallen in love with somebody else--a
+woman, of course, a thousand times superior to the discarded one."
+
+"You seem to know all about it, Mr Moreno."
+
+"It is my business to know things," replied the journalist quietly.
+"Well, it is a case of the `woman scorned,' you know.  I should say the
+fair Violet hated you now as much as she once loved you."
+
+"It may be possible.  I have a notion that you know women better than I
+do."
+
+"Bad women perhaps," said Moreno quietly.  "My experience has lain
+rather in their direction.  I think I have only known three good women
+in my life, two of whom were my mother and a girl I was once engaged
+to--she died a week before our wedding day."
+
+Rossett regarded him with a sympathetic gaze.  So this swarthy,
+black-browed young Spaniard had had his romance.  His voice had broken
+as he spoke of his dead sweetheart.
+
+"I am sorry for your experience.  Most of the women I have known have
+been very good, the fingers of one hand would count the bad.  But tell
+me more about Violet Hargrave.  She hates me, you say?"
+
+"I should say with a very bitter and malignant hatred," was Moreno's
+answer.
+
+"All arising, of course, from jealousy or disappointment.  How far is
+this hatred going to lead her?"
+
+"I should say to the furthest point."
+
+Rossett recoiled.  "You mean to say she can have so changed that she
+would contemplate that?"
+
+Moreno did not mince his words.  "You will take my word for it that it
+is revenge she seeks, and she will not hesitate.  Her position in the
+brotherhood will give her a very plausible excuse."
+
+For a moment, Guy Rossett lost his head.  "Yes, you told me just now, I
+remember, she belonged to the brotherhood.  But I always understood--"
+
+He paused; Moreno noted that sudden pause.  Rossett had been on the
+point of saying something that would have revealed much.
+
+The young man leaned forward and whispered.
+
+"Mr Rossett, do you still refuse to give me the name of your
+informant?"
+
+"I am afraid I cannot," was the firm reply.  "My word was given, you
+understand."  Again he seemed on the point of saying something further,
+and refrained.
+
+Moreno shrugged his shoulders.  "I admire your scrupulousness, but I
+still think you are very foolish in your own interests.  Still, I know
+what you Englishmen are.  If my suspicions had been confirmed by your
+positive evidence, my hands would have been very much strengthened.  I
+could have dealt with the matter in a very positive and speedy way."
+
+Rossett kept silence.  It was the safest method with the subtle young
+Spaniard, who took notice of every word and every glance, and rapidly
+constructed a theory out of the most slender facts.
+
+"There is no more to be said, so far as that is concerned," said Moreno
+quietly.  "You could have made it very easy for me; as it is, I shall
+have to expend more time and trouble.  But trust me, I shall get the
+information I want in good time.  I shall find people in your own walk
+of life less scrupulous than you are yourself."
+
+"Perhaps," replied Rossett briefly.
+
+"I am keeping watch and ward over you, as you know," went on Moreno in
+lighter tones.  "And I promise you I will give you plenty of notice of
+danger."
+
+"It is pretty near, eh?" queried Rossett.
+
+"Not very far off, I can assure you.  I am seeing the Chief of the
+Spanish police to-morrow.  I have some very important information to
+give him."
+
+The next day Moreno had a long interview with the Chief of Police, and
+also with the Head of the Spanish Secret Service.  Both the officials
+made copious notes at the respective interviews.  When he left them
+Moreno felt he had done good work.  He was sure that he could outwit
+Zorrilta, Alvedero, even the great Contraras himself.
+
+He took a flying visit to England after this, having two objects in
+view.  First, he wanted to see Isobel to arrange the details of her
+journey to Madrid.  He lunched with her and Lady Mary at a quiet little
+restaurant in Soho.  He promised to meet her on her arrival at Madrid
+and conduct her to her friends.  He would say nothing to Guy Rossett
+till he had her permission.
+
+For at the eleventh hour Isobel's heart a little failed her.  From what
+point of view would Guy contemplate this rather wild adventure?  Would
+he take it as a proof of her devoted love, or would he frown at the
+escapade, as a little unwomanly?  Men of the straightforward English
+type like Rossett are apt to be a little uncertain in their judgment of
+what is seemly in their womenkind, and what is the reverse.
+
+After luncheon, he went to keep an appointment with one of the chiefs of
+the English Secret Service.  This gentleman received him very
+graciously.  Moreno stood high in his estimation.  He had rendered very
+valuable service in the past and the present.
+
+"Delighted to see you, Mr Moreno.  But I should have thought at the
+moment you could hardly be spared from Spain, more especially the
+neighbourhood of Fonterrabia, and Madrid."
+
+"I never take a holiday, sir, unless I feel I am justified.  In this
+instance I am.  It is true I had a little private business on in England
+at this particular time, which does not concern your department.  But I
+have sandwiched that in."
+
+The grey-haired gentleman listened politely.  Moreno, as he knew by
+experience, did not make many mistakes.
+
+"Some little time ago, Mr Guy Rossett, at present attached to Madrid,
+gave you some very important information about the anarchist movement in
+Spain."
+
+"Ah, you know, do you?" was the cautious answer.
+
+"Of course, I have known it for a long time.  For very special reasons I
+want to know the name of the man or woman who gave that information to
+Rossett.  I will give you my reasons presently."
+
+The other man thought a moment.  "Yes, I remember the details perfectly.
+Rossett handed us certain memoranda which he had obtained from
+somebody, whose name he would not disclose."
+
+"That is exactly like Rossett.  I have attacked him direct and he still
+keeps silence.  As an honourable Englishman he remains staunch to his
+promise.  One cannot blame him, although in his own interests it would
+be better if he were a little less scrupulous."
+
+The grey-haired man began to get interested.  "Give me a few more
+details, Mr Moreno, so that I can see what you are driving at."
+
+Moreno unfolded his suspicions briefly.  He finished his story with the
+words, "If you could not make Rossett speak, I cannot.  But you have
+those memoranda in your archives.  Will you show them to me so that I
+may see if I recognise the handwriting."
+
+The other thought for a moment before he replied.  Even in the Secret
+Service everything is conducted with the most scrupulous fairness,
+although their opponents are destitute of the elementary principles of
+honesty.
+
+Then he made up his mind.  "From what you have told me, I think it is
+wise that I should show you these memoranda, with a view to
+strengthening your hand.  Kindly wait a few minutes and I will fetch
+them."
+
+He was only away a very short time, but Moreno's nerves were on the rack
+during the brief absence.  Were his suspicions going to be absolutely
+confirmed, or still left in the region of mere conjecture?
+
+The grey-haired man came back, and placed half a dozen closely covered
+sheets before him.  They were in a small, clear, feminine handwriting.
+
+Triumph glared in Moreno's dark eyes.  "As I guessed.  She wasn't clever
+enough to disguise her hand.  I can understand she could not run the
+risk of having them copied.  Why didn't she get Rossett to write them
+out at her dictation?"
+
+The other man made no reply to this ebullition on the part of the young
+Spaniard.
+
+"Of course you can't part with these, or any one page of them?" asked
+Moreno.
+
+"Out of the question," came the expected answer.  "I quite agree.  But
+you can get photographs taken of them, and then I shall have this woman
+in the hollow of my hand."
+
+"That shall be done, Mr Moreno.  You are going back to Spain to-day.
+They shall be sent to you to-morrow at whatever address you leave with
+me."  And Moreno walked out of the cosy little room well pleased with
+himself.  Guy Rossett might have saved him all this trouble if he had
+chosen to open his mouth.  Still, he had got the information he wanted.
+And, above all, what a fool Violet Hargrave had been, to let those
+memoranda go out in her own handwriting!  Moreno, who thought of every
+detail, would not have done that.
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
+
+The great anarchical association of which Ferdinand Contraras was the
+leading spirit did not differ greatly in essential features from those
+tyrannical and effete institutions which it was striving to supersede.
+
+There was still the wide gulf between the classes, bridged over
+speciously by the fact that they addressed each other as "comrade,"
+waiving all distinctive titles.
+
+The chief addressed the educated young fisherman as Somoza shortly,
+which was natural.  And, on the other hand, Somoza addressed him, though
+always very respectfully, as Contraras, which would not have been at all
+natural, under ordinary circumstances.
+
+Still, Somoza did not slap him on the back, or take liberties, as he
+would have done with an elderly fisherman in his own rank of life.  The
+gulf of class could not quite be crossed by dropping titles, and calling
+each other comrade.
+
+And then there was the question of wealth.  Contraras, in spite of his
+numerous donations to the cause, was still rich; so was Jaques.
+Zorrilta was moderately well-off.  Alvedero and Lucue were poor.  The
+sharing out had not begun yet.  Lucue, as we know, lived in humble
+lodgings in Soho, which galled him somewhat, as he was fond of comfort
+and the flesh-pots.
+
+Contraras, after a brief sojourn at Fonterrabia had come back to Madrid,
+where he had many friends in his own sphere of life.  Although not of
+noble birth himself, he had married a woman, a member of a family poor
+but boasting of the proudest blood of Spain in its veins.
+
+At Madrid he had engaged a suite of rooms at the Ritz Hotel in the Plaza
+de Canovas, near the Prado Museum.  Democrat and anarchist as he was in
+theory, the man delighted in displaying a certain amount of ostentation,
+whether at home or abroad.
+
+A little aware of his weakness in this direction, he consoled himself by
+the thought that in doing this he was throwing dust in the eyes of
+people of his own class--that he could more successfully carry on his
+propaganda, because nobody would ever suspect him of seeking to
+overthrow the regime under which he had prospered so exceedingly.
+
+The young Frenchwoman, Valerie Delmonte, was in Madrid at the same time
+also as Contraras.  She was staying at an equally luxurious hostelry--
+the Grand Hotel de la Paix in the Puerta del Sol.  She also had a suite
+of rooms, imitating her illustrious chief.
+
+She chose to be known by her maiden name of Mademoiselle Valerie
+Delmonte.  It did not suit her emancipated notions that a woman should
+sink her identity in that of a husband.  She had borne with the
+infliction for three short years of married life.  When her elderly
+husband, a rich Paris financier, died she found herself a very wealthy
+woman.  Monsieur Varenne had no near kith or kin.  With the exception of
+a few handsome legacies, he had left all his money to this young woman
+who was very handsome and still young, only in the late twenties.
+
+Contraras was an anarchist by profound and philosophical conviction.  He
+had persuaded himself that revolution, open and brutal revolution, was
+the only cure for a rotten and diseased world.
+
+Valerie had arrived at the same conclusion from a merely personal
+standpoint--from the point of view of her own feelings.  Naturally of a
+morbid temperament, absolutely a child of the gutter, the offspring of
+drunken and dissolute parents who had starved and beaten her, she had
+suffered no illusions as to what existence meant for the impoverished.
+
+She was a sharp-witted child, with plenty of brain-power, and a
+marvellous capacity for self-education.  At the age of twelve her
+parents had sold her for a paltry sum to the proprietor of a travelling
+circus.  This man had perceived at once that there was plenty of grit in
+the precocious child.  He had got her very cheap.  If he trained her
+carefully he might make a good deal of money out of her.
+
+The precocious little Valerie left her parents without the slightest
+regret--her life had been one long torture with them.  The
+circus-proprietor was a big, burly man, not destitute of a rough
+geniality.  There was a hard look in his eyes, a dogged squareness of
+the jaw that suggested a latent brutality.
+
+On the whole, however, he was a welcome relief from her former
+torturers, who had never thrown a kind word to her from the day of her
+birth.  Sometimes he was generous, sometimes he was brutal, as the mood
+took him.  Often he swore at her till she trembled in every limb.
+Occasionally, in his cups, he beat her.  But he was always sorry the
+next day, and did his best to make amends.  In short, he was a ruffian
+with a certain amount of decent feeling, and an uncertain temperament.
+
+She stayed with him till she was seventeen.  She might have stayed with
+him for ever, had not a sudden severance been put to their relations, by
+the man's sudden death, brought about prematurely by his constant
+indulgence in alcohol.
+
+Valerie could never recall the years that succeeded without a shudder.
+The circus was broken up, she was left helpless and friendless.
+
+It was during those terrible years that the iron entered her soul, when
+she experienced the keen, cruel suffering of the really poor, when she
+went to bed night after night, cold and hungry, after tramping the
+streets in vain for work.
+
+A weaker spirit would have succumbed to the temptation that was always
+at hand, for she was a very attractive girl.  But she was resolved, with
+her indomitable grit, to keep herself pure.  She turned away
+disdainfully from the leering old men, the callous young ones who
+accosted her as she paced the streets in her restless tramp for an
+honest living.  Better the river than that!
+
+After many vicissitudes, she came to anchor at last.  She was then about
+twenty-two.  She was very clever at educating herself.  She had taught
+herself to sing, she had taught herself to play the piano, she had
+taught herself to dance.
+
+She got an engagement at one of the minor halls in Paris to do a turn
+which combined singing and dancing.  She was very pretty and attractive.
+In a small way she made a name.  At the end of three months the manager
+trebled her salary.
+
+To this minor music hall came one night the rich financier, a somewhat
+shady one, if the truth must be told, Monsieur Varenne, a man of about
+fifty-five who had never married.
+
+He was greatly attracted by this elegant young girl.  Her voice was
+small, her dancing was nothing great.  But there was an indefinable
+charm about her that appealed to his somewhat jaded senses.
+
+He obtained an introduction through the manager, who was only too
+anxious to oblige such a well-known personage.  He invited her to
+supper.  She accepted the invitation graciously, but coldly.  Her
+coldness inflamed him the more.
+
+When they met, he was surprised at her cleverness, the correctness with
+which she expressed herself.  This was certainly no ordinary girl of the
+music halls.
+
+"Tell me something about yourself, my dear," he said, as they sat over
+their coffee.  "I did not expect to find you such a charming companion."
+
+Valerie smiled a little bitterly.  "I have not very much to tell.  I
+expect my lot has been like that of many thousands in this delightful
+world.  I am a child of the gutter.  My father and mother beat and
+starved me, and sold me for a paltry sum to the proprietor of a
+travelling circus.  It wasn't exactly a rosy life then, but it was
+paradise to where I had been.  He died; I was thrown on my beam ends.  I
+can't tell you what I have been through for the last few years.  I
+couldn't bear to talk of it--I have suffered everything that the poor
+have to suffer in such profusion--cold, hunger, the most absolute
+misery.  And, at last," she looked round at the luxurious appointments
+of the restaurant a little disdainfully, "I find myself in receipt of a
+decent salary, and the guest of a rich man who has pressed upon me every
+dainty.  And I have so often wanted a meal!"
+
+Varenne was a very kindly man, in spite of his somewhat sharp ways in
+business.  Those last few pathetic words had gone straight to his heart.
+She had often wanted a meal, and she was a most attractive girl!  Many
+would have called her beautiful.
+
+"It is a sad history, my poor child," he said sympathetically.  He
+paused a moment before he put the delicate question.  "And during those
+terrible years, when you suffered hunger and privation, you kept
+yourself straight?  It would have been so easy to go wrong, so excusable
+under the circumstances."
+
+"Of course," she answered, and there was a note of wounded pride, of
+indignation, in her voice.  "I am not that sort of woman--better the
+river than that.  I might give myself to a man out of love or gratitude,
+but never merely for money."
+
+It was a new experience for the wealthy financier.  Here was a girl who
+had just stepped off the platform of a music hall, where she was, no
+doubt, earning a very modest salary, who had grit and backbone in her,
+and, moreover, a proper pride and self-respect.
+
+He had, of course, with the easy confidence of a man of the world,
+imagined the usual termination to such an adventure.  But he recognised
+at once that he could not make any proposition of the kind he meditated.
+He pressed her hand tenderly at parting, and arranged a further
+meeting.
+
+They met several times, and Varenne went through agonies of indecision.
+But the attraction was too strong, and at last he asked her to marry
+him.  It was that or losing her altogether.
+
+And did it matter much?  His world would laugh at him as a matter of
+course, say he had got into his dotage.  And a girl who was young enough
+to be his daughter!  There is no fool like an old fool, he told himself
+rather ruefully.
+
+But she had so subjugated him that he was quite a humble wooer in spite
+of the enormous advantages he was offering her.
+
+"Of course I am an old man, I cannot expect you to have any real
+affection for me," he said.
+
+She met his glance quite frankly.  "I have never been in love with
+anybody; my life has been too hard to permit me to indulge in the softer
+emotions.  But I like you very much.  I have always hated rich men; they
+think they can buy anything with their gold.  You are a rich man, I
+know, you have told me so yourself, but you have a kind nature and a
+good heart."
+
+"And can you overlook the disparity of years?" he questioned, still very
+humble.
+
+"I am twenty-two, but I don't think I am very young; I am old in
+experience and bitterness.  Well, if you care to risk the experiment, I
+will be your wife.  I will do my best to make you happy."
+
+They were married.  And this marriage was the turning point in Valerie's
+life.  If everything had gone smoothly, she might have forgotten those
+bitter experiences, outlived her still more bitter rancour against the
+prosperous and well-to-do.
+
+Unfortunately the friends of Monsieur Varenne would not forgive him for
+this false step, so unpardonable in a man of his intelligence and
+position.  He was a fool, that was clear, but they were not going to
+abet him in his mad folly.  Their doors were shut against his wife, this
+creature of the music halls, to whom he was going to leave his fortune.
+
+After this bitter experience, the iron entered even deeper into her
+soul.  Her husband was kindness and tenderness itself.  In his devotion
+to his young wife, he paid no attention to the fact that he had cut
+himself off from his old friends, his old social life.
+
+He was ready to comply with her slightest wish.  He showered on her the
+most costly gifts, his purse was absolutely at her disposal.  She had
+everything that wealth could give, except the one thing she craved, to
+mix on equal terms with these people who despised her.
+
+When the kindly old man died, she mourned him sincerely.  If she had
+never loved him, in the true sense of the word, she had felt for him a
+very warm and grateful affection.  On his death-bed, she had faltered
+forth a few words of self-reproach, had blamed herself for taking
+advantage of his generosity, for not having sufficiently counted the
+cost to himself.
+
+On this point he had reassured her.  "I have been very happy, my dear,
+happier than I ever expected to be.  I would not have anything changed."
+
+She came into that considerable fortune which was of so little use to
+her.  During her few years of married life she had educated herself into
+a woman of considerable accomplishments, for she had a very quick and
+acute intelligence.
+
+Her socialist proclivities were now fully developed, after the scurvy
+treatment at the hands of her husband's friends.  The circles where
+these doctrines were preached readily opened their doors to an
+attractive and enthusiastic young woman, whose wealth would be very
+useful for propaganda.  She was more than the equal of these purse-proud
+parvenus, who would not accept her acquaintance, in intellect and
+behaviour.  She felt it bitterly.
+
+Very soon she came under the influence of Contraras, who was possessed
+of great personal magnetism.  His reasoned arguments, his fiery
+eloquence, quickly led her a step further--from socialism to anarchy.
+In a very short space she became one of the leading spirits of the
+brotherhood.  As the old regime would not receive her, she would do her
+best to overthrow it, and assert the doctrine of absolute equality.
+
+Contraras came frequently to the Grand Hotel de la Paix to visit his
+young colleague.  He had very charming manners, this elderly enthusiast,
+and Valerie liked him very much, apart from his principles.  He was one
+of the few rich men she had ever known, her late husband being another,
+whom she did not despise.  He was no mere hoarder of wealth, using it as
+a means to enslave his less fortunate fellow-creatures.
+
+Contraras came in one afternoon in a very cheerful mood.  She looked at
+him eagerly.  She could read his countenance pretty well by now.
+
+"You have something to tell me, Contraras?"
+
+The old man smiled.  "Yes, my dear, I have got what we wanted.  You can
+walk in boldly.  There will be no smuggling through the back door,
+although we could have managed that, if the other had failed."
+
+"Did you get it in the quarter you expected?"
+
+"Yes; I had a little tussle with del Pineda, but I overcame his
+scruples.  Besides, he is considerably in my debt.  I assured him that
+he would never be accused of complicity, that I would take all the blame
+on my own shoulders."
+
+He rubbed his hands and chuckled softly.
+
+"What does Contraras, a man of means and position, with powerful
+connections in Spain, know of the secret sentiments of Mademoiselle
+Delmonte, a charming young lady of wealth, whom he has met abroad?
+Mademoiselle Delmonte asks for his good offices in a certain matter of a
+most, apparently, innocent nature.  He places himself at her disposal,
+and secures what she wants through the agency of a certain Duke who is
+equally ignorant of her real purposes."
+
+A dreamy look stole into the young woman's eyes.  She spoke in a low
+voice, as if she were muttering to herself.
+
+"A week to wait, only just one little week.  And then, if all goes as we
+think and hope--the dawn of the new era!  But I shall not live to see
+it."
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
+
+Moreno met Isobel and her maid at the railway station, and drove them to
+the home of his friends, the Godwins, who lived in a respectable but not
+particularly fashionable quarter of Madrid.
+
+Mrs Godwin, a buxom and kind-faced woman, received the girl with open
+arms.  Mr Godwin had discreetly absented himself during the first
+meeting of the two women.
+
+"So delighted to see you, Miss Clandon.  I was a very intimate friend of
+Andres' mother.  Any friend of his is very welcome.  I shall do my best
+to make you happy during your stay here.  I am afraid the accommodation
+is not what you have been used to.  We are a little cramped for room."
+
+A dear good honest _bourgeoise_ creature.  Isobel took to her at once.
+She felt the _milieu_ was not quite what she could have desired, but
+Moreno had done all he could, most probably out of his old friendship
+for Farquhar.  Whatever discomforts she might have to endure, well--she
+had brought them on herself by embarking on this daring adventure.
+
+Mr Godwin came in presently, a large, heavy man, who greeted her with
+great gravity.  She learned afterwards that he had been connected with
+the wine trade, and had retired from active business on a respectable
+competence.
+
+Moreno took his departure as soon as he could.  He had several matters
+on hand, besides looking after a wandering maiden of a romantic turn of
+mind.
+
+Isobel stayed him at the door.  "When am I going to see Guy?" she
+whispered.
+
+The young journalist looked at her kindly.  He remembered his own too
+short-lived romance.  That whisper had come straight from her heart.
+
+"Ah, that is for you," he said.  "You know, you confessed you were a
+little doubtful about how he would look upon it.  Will you ask Lady Mary
+to write him the news, or would you rather that I should?"
+
+Isobel interrupted him eagerly.  "Oh, would you?  Lady Mary is a
+darling, and devoted to us both.  But if I write to her, and she has to
+write to Guy, it may be ages before we meet.  And, besides," she added
+with the unconscious guile of a woman, "in certain things, men are so
+much better diplomatists than women.  I am sure you could put everything
+from a reasonable point of view, present everything in quite a
+favourable light.  I do not want him to think I am a masculine sort of
+person, an enlightened female who goes tearing about all over the world
+after a man she loves."
+
+Moreno was a very kind-hearted fellow.  He could not resist that wistful
+look in the beautiful dark eyes.  The girl was alone in the world.  She
+had just lost her father; Guy was now her sheet-anchor.
+
+"I say, if you want to see him quickly, why not send a note round to the
+Embassy, just giving him your address, and saying simply, `I am here'?"
+
+But Isobel rather shrank from that.  It seemed too bold, perhaps a
+little unmaidenly.  She had always been educated in the belief that a
+woman should never make advances.  Advances might be made through a
+third party, perhaps, if they were made with discretion.
+
+"But you could explain it all so much better than I could, Mr Moreno,
+how the whole thing was led up to by your letter to Lady Mary."
+
+Moreno looked at his watch.  "I was going to leave Madrid in half an
+hour.  Well, I can catch a train three hours later, it won't make much
+difference.  I will be off at once to the Embassy, and catch Rossett
+there, if not, at his flat.  You, of course, can see him at any time,
+to-day or to-morrow?"
+
+"A thousand thanks," replied Isobel, with her charming smile.  "Yes, I
+shall not stir out much anyway.  But I will keep in the two whole days."
+
+"Mrs Godwin, I warn you, will insist on showing you the sights of
+Madrid."
+
+"I will resist her," said Isobel firmly.
+
+Moreno smiled, and said good-bye.  It was a little pathetic, he thought,
+the patient, loving woman ready to wait the man's convenience.  Ever the
+way with true love.
+
+A brief drive to the Embassy in the Calle Fernando el Santo, a hastily
+pencilled note sent up to Rossett.  Half an hour later, the two men were
+seated at a different rendezvous, for this time Moreno was not in his
+working-man's dress.  He had to be very cautious.
+
+Moreno went to the point at once.  "I have news that will startle you,
+Mr Rossett.  Your fiancee Miss Clandon, is in Madrid at this moment."
+He named the respectable but unfashionable quarter in which the girl had
+taken up her abode.
+
+"What?" shouted Guy Rossett in his astonishment.  It was just the same
+ejaculation he had used when he learned that Violet Hargrave was in
+Spain.  The vocabulary of the average Englishman is very limited when he
+has to express sudden emotion.  And Guy was quite the average type.
+
+"Of course you are very surprised.  Well, I am afraid it is all due to
+me.  You remember some time ago I begged you to get out of this place.
+You refused.  I took it on myself to write to your sister to use your
+father's influence to get you recalled.  That fell through too."
+
+"It was very kind of you to interfere in my private affairs, Mr
+Moreno," observed Rossett stiffly.
+
+"You are a bit of responsibility to me, Mr Rossett," replied the
+journalist in his usual imperturbable fashion.  "I will tell you frankly
+I should be very glad to see the back of you to-morrow, for your own
+sake--" He added in a lower voice, "Still more for the sake of the girl
+who loves you as much as you love her."
+
+"Forgive me," cried Rossett hastily.  "I quite appreciate that you mean
+very well to both of us."
+
+"Thank you," said Moreno.  "Well, to get on with my story.  I have a
+very old chum, one Maurice Farquhar who happens to be a cousin of your
+fiancee.  One night, in his chambers, I hinted that danger was
+threatening you here.  It seems he told Miss Clandon.  As I have stated,
+I wrote to your sister.  The two women put their heads together.  Miss
+Clandon's father died.  She had no longer any ties binding her to
+England.  She was mad to come out here to be near you.  As men of the
+world, we might say, the unreasoning caprice of a very loving woman."
+
+"It was very sweet and dear of her," said Guy.  There was a little break
+in his voice as he spoke.  "But I am interrupting you in your story.
+Please go on."
+
+"There is not much more to tell.  As I have said, the two women put
+their heads together.  Lady Mary sent for Farquhar to consult him as to
+how Miss Clandon could get to Spain.  She felt if she consulted you, you
+would, under the circumstances, have vetoed the project altogether."
+
+"I don't think there is the slightest doubt I should," said Rossett,
+quite frankly.
+
+"I agree.  Well, they were not going to give you the chance.  They took
+matters into their own hands.  Farquhar knew nothing about Spain; he
+wrote to me to ask me if I could help them.  Well, I helped them.  I
+went over to London, saw your sister and Miss Clandon, and arranged for
+the journey.  I met her at the station to-day, took her to the house of
+some very respectable English people whom I have known from my boyhood,
+not people of your class, nor of Miss Clandon's.  But I think there she
+will be very quiet and comfortable."
+
+Guy Rossett leaned across the table and held out his hand.
+
+"A thousand thanks, Mr Moreno.  After this, we must be firm friends.
+My brave little Isobel, how plucky and daring of her.  And you took all
+this trouble!"
+
+There was no suspicion in his frank tones, but Moreno liked to clear up
+everything as he went on.
+
+"Yes, it took up a good deal of my time, but I didn't grudge it.  I saw
+your fiancee and sister dining one night with you at the Savoy, but had
+never spoken to them in my life.  But Farquhar is an old chum of mine;
+he has done me some very good turns.  I was pleased to return the
+compliment."
+
+There was a brief pause, before Moreno spoke again.  "I left Miss
+Clandon a little time ago.  She is longing to see you.  I suggested she
+should send round a note to you.  She seemed a little fearful of what
+you might think of her hasty action.  She begged me to come round and
+explain matters.  That is why I am here.  Here is her address."
+
+"Again a thousand thanks."  Rossett looked at his watch.
+"Unfortunately, I have to dine at the Embassy to-night, and there is no
+getting out of that.  We are the slaves of duty.  I have only just time
+to get back and dress.  I will leave as soon after dinner as I decently
+can, and go round to her."
+
+"Away with you, duty calls," said Moreno, rising briskly.  "I will send
+a note round to her saying I have seen you, and that you will be there
+to-night."  It was late when Rossett, hurrying as fast as he could,
+entered the small drawing-room of the flat tenanted by the respectable
+Godwins.  Isobel was alone; the worthy couple, with commendable tact,
+had absented themselves.  Moreno had told them just as much as it was
+well for them to know, and they were not very inquisitive people.
+
+It was a very delightful meeting.  They had been longing for each other
+since they last parted.  They exchanged their vows of love all over
+again.
+
+"And you are sure you are not angry with me, Guy?" asked Isobel, as they
+sat hand in hand on the rather hard sofa.
+
+"Angry, my brave little darling.  Why should I be?  But I say, this is
+not the sort of place for you, you know.  Have you brought a maid with
+you?"
+
+"Yes, our old parlourmaid, Ethel.  I don't suppose you remember her."
+
+"Yes, I do.  Well, you must go the Ritz, or one of the good hotels."
+
+"Oh, please no, dearest.  I have no chaperon, you see, and it might look
+queer.  Besides, I don't want to meet a lot of people, and have to
+explain things.  I would much prefer to stay here _incognita_.  Dear
+Mrs Godwin is quite a motherly old soul, and knows nothing of what is
+going on in the great world except what she learns from the newspapers.
+And I am not so far off, after all.  You can come and see me sometimes."
+
+"Every day, darling," cried Rossett.  On reflection, he was inclined to
+think that, under the very peculiar circumstances, Isobel's course of
+action was the right one.  If she blossomed forth at a fashionable
+hotel, a great deal would have to be explained.  In a censorious and
+conventional world, young women, however pure in heart, cannot afford to
+be adventurous.
+
+As they sat on the sofa, she told him at great length of her visit to
+Ticehurst Park, and the Earl's consent to their engagement, of his
+endeavour to get her to use her influence to lure Guy from his post, of
+her refusal, in which she had been staunchly supported by her father.
+She had told him briefly of this at the funeral, but he had been so
+pressed for time that she had only supplied him with the barest details.
+
+"The old dad, he was always great at a bargain, but this time you got
+the better of him, my darling."
+
+Then he put his hand in his breast pocket, and drew forth a letter.  "By
+Jove, I had very nearly forgotten--a letter received this morning from
+that dear old Aunt Henrietta.  I won't read you all of it, there are
+yards, but I'll just run through a passage that concerns us."
+
+This was the passage he read.  "I hear a great deal from Mary, who as
+you know is a most indefatigable correspondent, about your fiancee,
+Isobel Clandon.  She describes her as a most sweet and lovable girl.
+There were always the two types in the Rossett family, the practicable
+and the romantic.  You, Mary, and myself belong to the latter.  I
+married for love, Mary would have done, and you are going to.
+
+"I hear also your post is rather a dangerous one, and that they have
+tried to get you recalled, but that you will not hear of it.  Well, I
+admire your spirit and sense of duty.  Still, as soon as you can retire
+with honour, do so.
+
+"Now that your father has given his consent, there is nothing to wait
+for.  I shall make the way easy for you, as I have always tried to do.
+Bring your Isobel to see me at the first opportunity.  I am longing to
+make her acquaintance."
+
+"What a darling!" cried Isobel enthusiastically.  "Well, anyway, there
+are three dear people in the present Rossett family, your Aunt, Mary,
+and yourself.  And Lord Saxham is not so bad after all."
+
+In her happiness she freely forgave the old gentleman his former
+hostility, his attempt to drive a bargain with her.
+
+"No, he's by no means so bad, when you get to know him, to pierce
+through the crust as it were.  He is a sort of cross between the
+practical and romantic Rossetts," said Guy.
+
+They talked for a long time about their future plans.
+
+When Isobel laid her head upon her pillow that night, she was happier
+than she had ever been since the day her dear old father died.
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
+
+A week had passed since the conversation between Valerie Delmonte and
+Contraras had taken place.  A great function was on at the Royal Palace
+to-night.  All the elite of Madrid would be there.
+
+For this special occasion, the leading members of the Spanish section
+had shifted from Fonterrabia to the capital--Zorrilta, Alvedero, Violet
+Hargrave, Andres Moreno.  Contraras and Valerie Delmonte had already
+taken up their residence there.  It was the night of the great _coup_,
+on the successful development of which depended the dawn of the new era.
+
+Moreno had a busy day.  Thanks to the noble-spirited action of
+Mademoiselle Delmonte, who had taken the entire execution of the _coup_
+upon herself, he was spared any active participation in it.  Violet
+Hargrave, who had been originally named as an assistant, was also
+dispensed with.
+
+At eleven o'clock in the morning, he was seated in the private room of
+the Head of the Spanish Secret Service.  There was also present the Head
+of the Police.  The three men talked together for a very considerable
+time.  Moreno was attired in his shabby workman's garb; he had on also a
+false beard and moustache.
+
+When the interview was terminated, Moreno rose; and turned to the Chief
+of Police.
+
+"You have thought it all out then?  You know she will come with the
+Duchess del Pineda."
+
+"She will be watched from the moment she enters the Palace to the moment
+she leaves it," was the chief's confident reply.
+
+"And you say that the Duchess is quite ignorant of her intentions?"  It
+was the Chief of the Secret Service who spoke.
+
+"I will swear to the innocence of the Duchess, also to that of the Duke.
+They are simply tools.  They have been made use of by a superior
+intelligence, by a man who has a strong hold over the Duke."
+
+"I wish, Mr Moreno, you were able to take us a little more into your
+confidence.  Would it not be possible to bag the whole lot to-night?"
+
+The Chief of the Police rubbed his hands at the thought.  "Ah, that
+would be a fine idea.  And I suppose, Mr Moreno, you have it in your
+power to enable us to do so?"
+
+"Gently, gentlemen, if you please.  Don't be ungrateful.  I am helping
+you somewhat to-night.  And because I am doing this, you want to rush
+things," answered the young journalist in his usual quiet way.  "Now,
+look you, much as I desire to serve you, I have a very tender regard for
+my own skin."
+
+"Naturally," cried the Secret Service man.  And the Chief of Police
+echoed him.
+
+"The secret of this project to-night has been entrusted to a good many
+people," continued Moreno.  "If it fails, as you promise me it will
+fail, two things will occur to the mind of the Chief--one that the
+brotherhood has been betrayed by one in their counsels, the other that
+your spies noticed something suspicious in the behaviour of the woman,
+and that she was arrested on the strength of that suspicious behaviour."
+
+The two men nodded their heads.  They began to see the drift of his
+observations.
+
+"I was at first designed to take part in this project, but the original
+programme was altered.  Had it been adhered to, I think I could have
+enabled you to bag the whole lot, at any rate, most of them, and yet
+escaped scot free myself, of course with your co-operation."
+
+"We dare not ask you to disclose your plan?" insinuated the Secret
+Service man gently.
+
+Moreno shook his head.  "I think not.  But if this _coup_ fails, there
+will be another planned shortly.  By that time my ideas will be
+perfected, and I trust I shall be able to do what you want, and escape
+with a whole skin.  Only one member of the brotherhood will be here
+to-night.  The others are scattered about.  Suspicion would at once fall
+upon me if every one except myself were taken."
+
+"We could work that out pretty easily, could we not?" queried the Chief
+of Police eagerly.
+
+"I think not," was Moreno's answer.  "You would have got this lot out of
+the way, but there are a few members of the brotherhood left in London,
+and every man has a knife handy.  I must show a clean sheet to those who
+remain at large.  Please trust me, and I will shortly do it in my own
+way."
+
+Moreno left after cordial hand-shaking.  Both the Chiefs were men of
+considerable astuteness, and great experience.  But they agreed that
+there was a certain subtlety about this young man, a certain suggestion
+of strength and confidence, that won their admiration.
+
+Moreno perhaps did not repose quite so much confidence in them as they
+did in himself.
+
+"I hope to heaven they won't bungle it at the last minute," he said to
+himself as he walked along.  "If I were dealing with the French police,
+I shouldn't have a doubt."
+
+He walked down the Puerta del Sol, past the Grand Hotel de la Paix.  He
+saw the tall form of Contraras enter the vestibule.  He shrugged his
+shoulders, and a look of regret stole over his face.
+
+"He is going to hearten her up for this night's work, the old devil,
+while he stands safely outside, and looks on.  Poor little woman!  I
+wish I could save her.  But how can you save a fanatic?"  So ran his
+thoughts.  "Why in the name of wonder does a woman who has got
+everything in the world she requires want to mix herself up with this
+wretched and bloodthirsty crew?  She must lie on the bed she has made,
+and it will be a pretty hard one, I should wager."
+
+Moreno walked swiftly in the direction of a poor quarter of the town.
+He entered the humble abode of an inferior member of the Spanish Secret
+Service, where he doffed his working-man's garb and assumed his ordinary
+clothes.
+
+Later on, he saw Violet Hargrave, who was living close to him.
+
+Violet seemed very restless and perturbed.  "This is the great night,"
+she said by way of greeting.  "I wonder if it will come off all right."
+
+"I should say there is every chance it will, unless Valerie's nerve
+fails her at the last moment," was Moreno's diplomatic answer.
+
+Mrs Hargrave gave a little shudder.  Her pretty delicate face went a
+shade paler.
+
+"I cannot help feeling glad that I wasn't brought into it."
+
+Moreno bent upon her his keen glance.  "And yet I should not put you
+down as a very tender-hearted person."
+
+"I don't know that I am, or should be under certain circumstances.  But
+I have no grudge against these people, no particular wrong to avenge.
+Aren't you really glad you are out of it?"
+
+"I suppose, in a way, I am.  Still, one feels a bit of a coward in
+letting Valerie take all the risk.  It seems taking advantage of her
+bravery, to snatch at the chance of avoiding all danger for oneself."
+
+"I shall sit up very late, on the chance of hearing the news."
+
+"On the contrary, I think I shall go to bed early," said Moreno.  "We
+shall hear nothing to-night in this distant quarter.  And in the morning
+there will be the news, or no news at all.  The Chief will let us know."
+
+The great Contraras, very upright and vigorous for his age, was shown
+into Mademoiselle Delmonte's sitting-room.  She sprang up eagerly at his
+entrance.
+
+"I am so glad you have come.  You are a little late, are you not?
+Luncheon will be served in a few moments."
+
+He could see she was very restless, and her cheeks were pale; there was
+a strange, almost unnatural brilliance in her dark eyes.  Her voice was
+jerky.
+
+He took both her hands in his and pressed them tenderly.  "You are not
+afraid, Valerie?"
+
+He was a fanatic, bold, brutal, and ruthless in his fanaticism, ready to
+sacrifice anything and everybody to the one absorbing idea.  But at the
+sight of those pale cheeks, that quivering mouth, a momentary regret
+assailed him.  He was a father, and this beautiful young woman was young
+enough to be his daughter.
+
+"We ought to have had a man for this job," he said, speaking a little
+hoarsely.  "But you know you chose it yourself; you would not even have
+another associated with you."
+
+"I know."  She tried to laugh lightly, but there was a quaver in the
+laugh.  "I do not regret.  I am not really afraid.  But I suppose every
+soldier on his first battlefield has inward tremors that he cannot
+repress.  I am a soldier of the Revolution, and to-night is my first
+battlefield."
+
+"And you feel those tremors, eh?"
+
+"Just a little, although I blush for them.  But don't let us think of
+this.  Ah, here comes lunch."  They sat down to the meal.  She was a
+very abstemious woman, and rarely partook of stimulants.  But, in honour
+of Contraras' visit, she had ordered a bottle of champagne.  Under its
+exhilarating influence, her jangled nerves readjusted themselves, and
+she became her natural self.  The colour returned to her cheeks.
+
+She raised her glass and nodded to her guest.
+
+"To the new world, born upon the ruins of the old."
+
+"Amen to that wish!" cried Contraras fervently, as he drank his wine in
+one long draught.
+
+There was a long pause, which she broke abruptly.  "I think I have told
+you I made my will in London last year."
+
+Contraras nodded.  "Yes, you told me that."
+
+"But I did not tell you the details.  I have left all my money in the
+hands of the Public Trustee, to divide amongst certain charities.  As
+private fortunes go, it is a fair one--but what a small sum to go to the
+alleviation of this vast amount of human misery!"
+
+"You could not have made a better use of it," said Contraras
+appreciatively.
+
+"To you, my dear friend, I have left twenty thousand pounds to devote to
+whatever purpose you think fit.  Of course you will apply that money to
+the spreading of the propaganda."
+
+"I much appreciate your kind thought, my dear Valerie; it is just like
+you.  But may the day be far distant when--"
+
+She raised her hand.  "We will speak no more of that, please.  I wonder
+what will be the result of to-night?"
+
+"Success!" cried Contraras confidently.  "Success!"
+
+A few minutes later he rose to go.
+
+"The Duchess will call for you in her carriage.  Once arrived at the
+Palace, keep under her wing for some time, so as to avoid suspicion.
+Then seize your time and opportunity.  Would you like me to come round
+and see you before you start?  But I shall look out for you at the
+Palace."
+
+For a moment she did not answer him, she was pursuing the train of her
+own thoughts.
+
+"I never told you I had my fortune told by a gipsy when I was sixteen.
+Would you like to know what she predicted?"
+
+"If you wish," replied Contraras politely.  He had no respect for
+gipsies or their prophecies.
+
+"Ah, I see it won't interest you.  I don't think you believe much in the
+spiritual side of existence.  Still, I will tell it; it will not take a
+moment.  Up to the present, it has come remarkably true.  This gipsy,
+she was a very old woman, predicted that I should have a very hard life
+for some years, then would come some years of great good fortune, and
+then--equally great tribulation."
+
+Contraras smiled.  "My dear child, she probably predicted precisely the
+same things hundreds of times to her clients.  The veil of the future is
+not to be lifted by a wandering beggar-woman."
+
+"Of course, I knew you would not be impressed, or perhaps you just say
+it to cheer me."
+
+She had forgotten his question--should he come and see her again before
+she started for the Palace?  He repeated it.
+
+"No, my good friend, I would rather not.  If all goes well, we shall
+meet again often.  If not, we will say good-bye here.  A thousand thanks
+for your friendship and kindness."
+
+Could fanaticism go further?  She was thanking this hardened old schemer
+for his friendship and kindness--friendship and kindness that were ready
+to sacrifice her at any moment for his own ends.
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
+
+Moreno had declared to Violet Hargrave that he proposed to go to bed
+early, and wait till to-morrow for the news.
+
+When he spoke that had been his original intention.  But, as the evening
+drew on, he began to feel a certain restlessness stirring in him.
+Certain things were about to happen, or, as he hoped, to be frustrated.
+He could hardly compose himself to sleep under the unusual
+circumstances.  He would go out, and form one of the undistinguished
+crowd that clustered round the Palace gates.  If anything dramatic
+happened, he could not fail to be aware of it.  The news would spread
+like wildfire.
+
+On his arrival, he caught sight of a woman closely veiled standing close
+beside him.  He recognised her at once.  It was evident that Mrs
+Hargrave could no more endure to stay indoors than he could.
+
+He moved up a few paces and spoke to her in English, practically their
+native tongue.
+
+"The same sudden impulse seized both of us," he whispered.  "Well, it is
+a very orderly crowd.  I don't think we shall be pushed or knocked
+about.  We shall enjoy the sight of the grandees arriving.  By the way,
+it is a pity we were not sent an invitation, then we could have seen it
+from the inside."
+
+Violet Hargrave whispered back.  "I simply couldn't stay indoors.  My
+nerves seem on edge to-night."
+
+"Mine are a bit out of time, too," answered Moreno in a low voice.
+
+And, while they were waiting, Moreno indulged in several philosophical
+reflections.
+
+A curious and not ill-natured crowd was gathered round the Palace,
+something like the throng that gathers round a wedding.  There was no
+harm in these good-humoured, laughing persons, mainly of the lower
+order.  They were not envious of the people who went inside, these men
+in Court costume, these women of another world, daintily attired.  They
+discussed and admired the good looks of the men, the exquisite costumes
+of the women.
+
+If the Court Chamberlain had suddenly appeared, and in the name of their
+Majesties, bade them enter the Royal precincts in a spirit of perfect
+equality with the other guests, they would have been very embarrassed
+and, save for a few adventurous spirits, have declined the invitation.
+They would have felt out of place.
+
+From what causes arose this antagonism amongst the clever extremists of
+the proletariat toward the more fortunate ones of the earth?
+
+Moreno was puzzled to find a solution.  Envy perhaps was the
+contributing cause.  And yet the ordinary man who dines at a common
+eating-house is not always envious of the man who eats a sumptuous
+luncheon at the Ritz or Carlton.  The middle-class prosperous
+professional man does not always gnash his teeth when he thinks of a
+nobleman, possibly his client, who has a rent roll of a hundred thousand
+a year.
+
+Moreno was very just.  There was a time when he had had to fare very
+frugally, and he had not complained.  Things had improved.  When the
+fancy took him, he would indulge in a good dinner, a bottle of
+champagne, and an excellent cigar.  Was he hurting the toiling millions
+very much if he occasionally indulged in these luxuries?  Were the few
+fortunate ones of the earth, and after all they were very few, hurting
+him if they indulged in them every day?
+
+Night was slowly settling over the city.  Far away from this scene of
+revel and display, some thousands of humble workers had eaten their
+frugal suppers, and were preparing for bed.  If all the money that was
+to be spent upon this function had been shared between them, would they
+have been much the richer?  Champagne, excellent cigars, and good
+dinners could not be given to every creature on God's earth.  That was
+an inexorable economic law, which no revolutionist could alter.
+
+He was raised from his reveries by a light touch on his arm.
+
+"Who are these two men?"  It was Violet Hargrave who spoke.  "Somehow,
+they look people of importance."
+
+Moreno recognised them at once, as they drove slowly through--the Chief
+of the Secret Service, the Head of the Police.  He was glad that they
+were on the scene early.  They might not have quite the perfect methods
+of the corresponding French organisations, but perhaps they would
+justify themselves before the night was over.
+
+"I don't know them from Adam, but, as you say, they certainly look
+persons of importance, especially the fat one."
+
+Always suspicious, he wondered if Mrs Hargrave was trying to draw him,
+herself knowing who they were.  Anyway, she had failed.  He was not to
+be caught by a leading question like that.
+
+Then presently she nudged him.  "Look, look, the Chief!"
+
+Yes, it was Contraras, driving in a humble cab.  His fine, lined face
+showed clear against the waning light.
+
+"Wonderful man!  The brains of sixty, the fire and energy of twenty!"
+said Moreno glibly.  He spoke with all the enthusiasm of a true son of
+the Revolution.
+
+Mrs Hargrave made no comment.  Equipage after equipage rolled up,
+containing fair women and brave men.  The Palace was one blaze of light.
+The crowd grew closer, enjoying the spectacle of the arriving guests,
+and it seemed a crowd that was at once good-humoured and appreciative,
+if at times critical.
+
+Moreno turned to his companion.  "I say, it's a bit of a shame that you
+and I are not inside instead of here, eh?  I think Contraras might have
+worked that while he was about it."
+
+Mrs Hargrave smiled back; she was very attracted by this black-browed
+young Spaniard.
+
+"My dear friend, under the new regime, we shall all go to Court."
+
+"To the Court of Contraras, I suppose?"
+
+"Something of that sort," answered Violet, letting herself go a little.
+"And Madame Contraras, more aristocratic than any queen, will smile
+condescendingly, and the pretty daughter will turn up her nose at us."
+
+The conversation was getting dangerous.  Mrs Hargrave must be checked
+in her impulsive moods, which, he honestly admitted, were very rare.
+
+"Ah, if I could see dear old Contraras in that position I would die
+happy," he exclaimed, with a splendid mendacity.
+
+Mrs Hargrave stole a quiet glance at him.
+
+"Yes, he is very wonderful, is he not?  But I can't honestly say I like
+his womenkind.  They have no sympathy with his aspirations."
+
+As they were speaking, a very gorgeous carriage rolled up.  It contained
+the Duchess del Pineda and Valerie Delmonte.  The Duke had not
+accompanied them.  He had pleaded indisposition, but probably prudence
+had dictated his absence.  Anyway, if certain things happened, it would
+be possible for him to plead a successful _alibi_.
+
+"Look, look!" cried Violet Hargrave, a little excitedly for her.
+"Valerie Delmonte!"
+
+Moreno, the kindly-hearted, felt a spasm of pity as he gazed on the face
+of the handsome, fanatical young Frenchwoman, whom that wily old
+Contraras had subjugated to his evil will.
+
+"Poor child!" he said aloud, for the benefit of his companion, "I can
+only hope she will not lose her nerve.  It was a man's job, but she
+would insist upon having it."
+
+There was a little lull in the procession of carriages.  And then there
+drove up one conveying Guy Rossett and a colleague.  The Ambassador had
+already arrived, with his wife.
+
+Moreno stole a glance at his companion.  She was heavily veiled, but he
+could see that her face had grown pale, that a sad look had come into
+her eyes.
+
+"Our admirable young diplomatist!" whispered the young man.  "Well,
+Madrid is not a very safe place for him."
+
+"But he is in no danger to-night I take it?" came back the answer in a
+whisper as low as his own.
+
+"I should say not.  For the present, we have left him out of our
+calculations; we are flying at higher game.  He will hardly come within
+the sphere of Valerie's operations.  His Chief may--I doubt even that."
+
+Mrs Hargrave made no comment.  Presently Moreno spoke in the same low
+whisper.
+
+"You have no great affection for Mr Rossett, I take it?"
+
+"No, I have not any great affection for Mr Rossett."
+
+"And yet you were once very good friends."
+
+Mrs Hargrave stiffened a little.  "You seem to know a great deal of my
+private affairs.  Yes, we once were very good friends.  He knew my
+husband long before I married him.  I fancy I have told you that."
+
+Moreno was not to be daunted by her aloof attitude.  He was never
+wanting in enterprise.
+
+"I should not be surprised if, at the present moment, you hated him."
+
+"Perhaps you are right," was the curt answer.
+
+Moreno indulged in a quiet inward chuckle.  If she had known that Isobel
+Clandon was established so close to her lover, that through his adroit
+manipulation of affairs they were meeting every day, her hatred must
+have expressed itself more heartily.
+
+Valerie Delmonte, under the wing of the unsuspecting Duchess, was now
+within the Palace.
+
+She had only once before looked upon a scene approaching this, and it
+had been much less brilliant.
+
+Once, early in their married life, her husband had taken her to one of
+the President's receptions in Paris.  It was easy, in his position, to
+secure the entree for himself and wife.
+
+She remembered that evening well.  Never had she felt more humiliated.
+Half a dozen times kind old Monsieur Varenne had introduced her to some
+of his acquaintances.  There was a formal bow interchanged, and nothing
+beyond; one and all they had sheered off.  Even in a republican and
+democratic country, these purse-proud citizens would have nothing to do
+with the girl who had come from the music halls.
+
+She recalled how, when she had reached home that night, she had burst
+into a fit of wild sobbing, and her kindly, elderly husband had tried to
+comfort her.
+
+"Calm thyself, _ma cherie_, we will not go to these hateful places
+again.  We will lead our own life."
+
+To-night, how different.  A Court, one of the oldest in Europe,
+reflecting that atmosphere of pomp and state associated with long
+descended Royalty.  The kindly young King, his British-born Queen,
+chatting graciously with their favoured guests.  Men in resplendent
+uniforms and orders, great ladies of the highest Spanish nobility, what
+a contrast to the homely reception of the President in those far-off
+days!
+
+Then she had been escorted by a very wealthy but somewhat shady
+financier, whose influence had not been sufficient to enable her to
+scale the social heights to which she had aspired.
+
+To-night she was under the wing of a popular chaperon, in whose veins
+ran the proudest blood of Spain.  The Duchess, acting according to
+instructions, introduced her to everybody she came across.
+
+Mademoiselle Delmonte, handsome, brilliant, and vivacious, was an
+immediate success.  This aristocratic assemblage, ignorant of her
+antecedents, only recognising that she was under the wing of the popular
+Duchess, took her at her real valuation.
+
+Being a woman, she was naturally pleased with her momentary success.
+But she was sensible enough to know to what she owed it.  If these
+people who were flattering her now had known of her lowly origin, how
+she had graduated through the circus and the music hall to the
+possession of wealth, they would have turned their backs on her, as the
+purse-proud parvenus had done in the democratic salons of the French
+President.
+
+These bitter reflections rather tended to harden than soften her
+resolution.  To-night she was an avenging angel, bent upon the task of
+making these insolent people atone for the insults heaped upon the
+lowly-born.
+
+Once in her triumphant progress she came near to Contraras, who was
+standing alone, surveying the brilliant scene with his keen, deep-set
+eyes.
+
+She disengaged herself from the arm of her companion, a handsome young
+man of some standing in Spanish Society.
+
+"Excuse me a moment.  I see an old friend, to whom I must say a few
+words."
+
+"What do you think of it all?" she whispered, as she held out her hand.
+
+"What I have always thought of such spectacles as these," he whispered
+back.  "These besotted creatures feast and dance and make merry, without
+a thought of their oppressed and toiling fellow-creatures."  He spoke
+intensely, in the most bitter spirit of his gloomy fanaticism.
+
+She could not linger, "My nerves are in perfect order," she assured him
+as she turned away.  He smiled kindly at her as she passed on.
+
+The amiable and innocent Duchess had performed the duties of chaperon so
+well, had introduced her to so many people, that it was a long time
+before Valerie could shake herself free.  It was a very crowded
+assemblage.  If she could once break away, she would be free to roam
+where she pleased.
+
+The moment came at last, close upon midnight.  She was alone and
+mistress of her own movements.  Her thoughts were no longer distracted
+by the idle chatter of some companion forced upon her.
+
+Slowly, she edged her way towards the Royal circle.  Progress was a
+little difficult, but at last she stood within a few feet of the King
+and Queen.  She stood for a few moments, perhaps summoning up her
+courage.  Then her hand stole towards her pocket.
+
+Before she could reach it, a little cordon was formed round her, a
+cordon of six men in ordinary evening dress.  The hand of one of the men
+gripped hers, and held it in a grasp of iron.
+
+"Come quietly, mademoiselle," whispered a voice in her ear.  "We have
+followed you round all the evening, we fancied there was something
+suspicious about you.  We may, of course, be mistaken, but in these
+troublous times we have to be very careful.  We will take you to a
+private room, and have you searched.  Of course, if nothing is found
+upon you, you will go free, and we will make you handsome amends."
+
+Valerie gave a little choking sob.  The gipsy's prophesy had come true--
+several years of hard life, a few years of good fortune, and then great
+tribulation.
+
+"I came here with the Duchess del Pineda," she said in a broken voice,
+hardly knowing what she was saying.  "Do you dare to suspect--"
+
+It was the Head of the Police who held her wrist in that iron grasp.  He
+spoke in a suave voice.
+
+"Mademoiselle, we always suspect in our profession.  For the Duchess del
+Pineda I have the highest respect.  Will you consent to come quietly?
+If we are in the wrong, you have nothing to fear."
+
+She turned with them without a word.  She had failed miserably.  The
+upholders of law and order had scored signally over the scattered and
+imperfect organisation of the brotherhood.
+
+Between them, she walked through the long, brilliantly-lit rooms.  The
+Chief of Police tucked her arm under his, keeping a tight hold on her
+wrist.  The other five men accompanied them.  There was nothing in the
+general attitude to suggest that she was not a very charming woman being
+escorted by a bevy of admirers.
+
+Contraras was standing by the door as the procession passed out.
+Agitated as she was, she saw him, and flashed at him an agonised glance.
+
+He flashed back at her a glance equally eloquent.  He knew the Chief of
+Police by sight, and he understood what had happened.  Poor little
+Valerie had failed!  They would take her to some room, and search her.
+In her pocket they would find those cunning little bombs that, once
+launched, would have sent tyrants and oppressors hurling into space, and
+proclaimed the dawn of the new era.
+
+Poor little Valerie!  His eyes grew misty.  As she had failed, it would
+have been better if he had left her alone.  If ever he felt remorse in
+his life, he felt it that night.
+
+His first impulse was to leave the Palace at once.  But wiser thoughts
+prevailed.  The Chief of Police had recognised him, he was sure.  If he
+left immediately, it might give cause for suspicion.
+
+Valerie had failed.  For the moment the Cause had suffered a set-back.
+But his resolution was still undaunted, his brain still active.  Because
+he had failed to-day, it did not follow that he would not be successful
+to-morrow.
+
+He sought out the Duchess del Pineda, who was, as usual, surrounded by a
+group of chattering friends.
+
+"Good evening, Duchess.  What has become of our young friend,
+Mademoiselle Delmonte?"
+
+"I really cannot tell you.  She broke away from me a long time ago.  She
+has been a tremendous success, I can assure you.  I hope she intends to
+make a long stay in Madrid.  She will be most popular."
+
+"I really cannot tell you.  I know nothing of her plans," answered
+Contraras in his grave, quiet tones.  "As I told the Duke, I met her in
+France and England, where she appeared to move in the best circles."
+
+"Naturally," said the innocent Duchess.  Nobody would suspect the highly
+respected Contraras of telling a deliberate lie.
+
+Outside the Palace, the crowd had thinned, but Moreno and Violet
+Hargrave still waited.  Midnight had struck and all was quiet.  There
+were no signs that heralded the happening of a tragedy.  A few belated
+arrivals passed through to the Palace.  The crowd began to melt away.
+
+And then there was a little stir.  A carriage drove up outside the
+Palace doors.  Two men and a woman stepped into it, the woman was in
+evening dress.
+
+The carriage passed the two watchers.  Mrs Hargrave peered into the
+slowly-moving vehicle.
+
+"Valerie Delmonte," she whispered excitedly.  "There is a man sitting
+beside her, one of those two men I noticed driving in--don't you
+remember I said they looked people of importance, and you said you did
+not know them from Adam.  What does it mean?  Valerie alone with those
+men?"
+
+"It looks as if the _coup_ had failed," replied Moreno quietly.  "I
+should say that Valerie has been caught, and those two men are members
+of the police."
+
+Mrs Hargrave grew a little hysterical.  "Thank God, it was not myself,"
+she added, after a pause.  "I am glad it was not you."
+
+Moreno was about to reply when another carriage drove through, the
+occupant of which was Contraras.  His tall form seemed huddled up; he
+was evidently in a state of extreme dejection.
+
+Moreno tucked Mrs Hargrave's arm under his own.
+
+"Come along!  Evidently the _coup_ has failed; the police have been one
+too many for us.  Valerie Delmonte going away with those two men, poor
+old Contraras huddled up in that carriage, his attitude expressing that
+all is lost, at any rate, for the moment!  We have nothing to wait for.
+We shall hear all about it to-morrow."
+
+They walked along arm in arm, both occupied with their own thoughts.
+Mrs Hargrave broke the long silence.
+
+"He is a wonderful man.  If he is dejected to-night, he will be full of
+energy and vigour to-morrow."  Moreno agreed.  "Yes, he will think of
+more _coups_.  I suppose the next one will be the removal of Mr
+Rossett."
+
+Violet made no answer immediately.  Then, presently she said.  "I fancy
+he is considered a rather dangerous person from our point of view."
+Moreno shrugged his shoulders.  "And yet I fancy his removal would not
+greatly hasten the new era, do you?  He is really a quite insignificant
+person.  If Valerie had brought it off to-night, well and good--but I
+must confess these minor developments don't interest me greatly.  Do
+they interest you?"
+
+"A little, I think," answered Mrs Hargrave, in a somewhat faint voice.
+
+Moreno looked at her steadfastly.  Her nerves were a bit out of order
+to-night.  That long vigil outside the Palace had told on them--that
+waiting for the crash of the bombs which Valerie Delmonte had carried in
+her pocket, the bombs which now had been appropriated by the Chief of
+Police.
+
+He gave her arm a tender pressure.  "I believe at bottom you are really
+a womanly woman.  The end justifies the means, of course, but some of
+the means are very bloodthirsty, don't you think?"
+
+"I thought so to-night, when I was waiting to hear the crash of those
+devilish, cunning little bombs, the latest invention of science, as our
+good old Contraras assures us."
+
+Moreno pulled himself up; perhaps he had been a little too frank.  But
+he knew that the photographed letter always gave him the whip-hand of
+Violet Hargrave.
+
+"Still, we must not be squeamish.  Revolutions are not made with
+rose-water, and you must break eggs to make omelettes."
+
+"Absolutely true."  Mrs Hargrave, looking provokingly pretty under her
+veil, sighed a soft assent to these platitudes.  He fancied her arm gave
+a responsive pressure to his.
+
+When he went to bed that night, Moreno was disturbed with remorseful
+thoughts of Valerie Delmonte.  If the Chief of Police had found those
+bombs in her pocket, it was he who had told that somewhat slow-moving
+official he would find them there.
+
+Then he comforted himself.  If he had betrayed Valerie, he had prevented
+her from hurling to destruction a dozen or more innocent people.  His
+conscience was quite clear.  If she had been a very ugly woman, instead
+of a very pretty one, perhaps his conscience might not have been
+troubled at all.
+
+"I didn't think much of that Chief of Police at first," he murmured
+drowsily, as he turned on his pillow.  "But he seems to have managed it
+all right.  Still, on the whole, I would rather deal with Scotland Yard,
+or the Surete in Paris."
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
+
+Lord Saxham and his daughter had left Ticehurst Park.  They were in
+their town house in Belgrave Square.  They were neither of them very
+fond of London.
+
+The Earl, in his youth and middle age, had experienced all the fleeting
+joys of the Metropolis.  Mary, after the experience of her unfortunate
+love-affair, had definitely resolved that she would retire into a
+convent and devote herself to good works as soon as her father died.
+
+Belgrave Square was even a little duller than Ticehurst Park.  They were
+in the midst of a crowd that had forgotten them.
+
+Lord Saxham was, to put it vulgarly, a back number, and was quite out of
+the modern whirl.  Lady Mary, during her brief season, had fallen head
+over ears in love with the handsome young Guardsman, and had buried her
+heart in his grave.
+
+The only thing that had drawn them up from the sylvan shades of
+Ticehurst Park was this--they wanted to be near Greatorex, that they
+could know what was happening to Guy at first hand.
+
+The eldest son of the house.  Viscount Ticehurst, dropped in
+occasionally, and deigned to spare them a few moments of his valuable
+time.  As a matter of fact, at the present moment he was occupied with a
+particularly pretty chorus-girl, whom he was half inclined to marry.
+
+Mary was fond of both her brothers, but she recognised the difference in
+them.  Eric was as weak as water and destitute of brains.  He was
+capable of marrying any chorus-girl on the sly, and then rushing her
+down home and presenting her as his wife, to the terrible consternation
+of his poor old father, who thought that people should always marry in
+their own class.
+
+Guy was different--there was just a little bit of common sense in him.
+He had fallen violently in love with Isobel Clandon--a girl not quite in
+his own world, from the Earl's point of view--but a sweet and lovable
+girl, and above all a lady.
+
+And Guy had waited for the parental consent, which had been wrung under
+somewhat false pretences.  But he had been content to wait until his
+future wife would be received under proper auspices.  He would not rush
+her down and take his father by storm, as Ticehurst would do when the
+time came for him to present his chorus-girl to a justly offended
+parent.
+
+Father and daughter sat at luncheon in the dining-room of the house in
+Belgrave Square.
+
+Very terribly did Lady Mary miss her beautiful gardens, her flowers, her
+dogs, her aviary of little songsters.  She was essentially a country
+girl.  She hated any city, with its cramped and narrow streets.  Even
+Paris had no attractions for her.  Vienna and Berlin left her cold.
+
+"You have seen Greatorex this morning, father?" she questioned when the
+servants had withdrawn.
+
+Lord Saxham frowned.  He had realised, in this his latest visit to the
+Metropolis, that he was a back number.  He remembered the years long ago
+when he was the most golden of the gilded youth.  Then his name was one
+to conjure with.  He led the revels; if it pleased him, he painted the
+town red.  Now, except for a few ancient cronies, nobody recognised him.
+
+"Yes, I saw Greatorex," he answered gloomily.  "He was always as close
+as wax.  He is closer than ever.  He comes of an infernally close
+family.  That family has never been anything great."  He was getting
+into his explosive vein.  "Always underlings and jackals--always content
+to serve."
+
+"What did he say about Guy?" asked Mary softly.
+
+"Only that he was quite happy and well.  He did vouchsafe to volunteer
+the information that some great anarchist _coup_ had failed."
+
+"Well, that was about as much as you could expect," said Mary in her
+quiet, gentle tones.  "He is not going to give information to
+everybody."
+
+"To everybody?" spluttered the Earl, in his most fiery mood.  "Am I
+everybody?  I have supported this Government through thick and thin.  I
+have backed them up through everything.  Why do they withhold their
+confidence from me, at this important moment?"
+
+Lady Mary used all her _finesse_.  She knew too well why Greatorex did
+not trust him.  He was an open sieve.  All news would filter through him
+in five minutes, at all his clubs, to the first acquaintance he met.
+
+"You must not blame Greatorex, dear; he carries a very heavy burden.  He
+dare not give an incautious confidence, drop a random word."
+
+"But why this reticence to me, of all people?" thundered Lord Saxham, in
+his most indignant tones.  "Am I not the soul of discretion?  Should I
+betray a confidence?"
+
+Mary made no answer.  She knew her father well.  Privately he was the
+soul of honour.  He would not betray a confidence wilfully.  But he was
+loose of speech, and he was quite vain.  He would drop a few hints,
+perhaps unconsciously, from which attentive listeners might gather much.
+
+She let the stormy ebullition pass.  Then she spoke.
+
+"I wish we could hear some really authentic news of dear old Guy."
+
+The Earl grunted.
+
+"You hear daily from Isobel?"
+
+"Of course, but Isobel is a woman.  She tells me what she is allowed to
+know.  Because she is a woman, Guy and Moreno keep everything from her.
+They make out the path is strewn with roses.  They will not tell her the
+truth, for fear of frightening her."
+
+"Then where are you going to get your information from?" asked the Earl
+querulously.
+
+There was a long pause.  When she spoke, a faint colour dyed Lady Mary's
+cheek.
+
+"I wonder if that young barrister would know anything; I almost forget
+his name--you remember, Isobel's cousin who came down to Ticehurst and
+arranged her journey to Spain.  Yes, I remember, Maurice Farquhar.  He
+is a bosom friend of that Spanish man, Moreno, who, I fancy, is trying
+his best to defeat the anarchists."
+
+The Earl was, fortunately, very unobservant to-day.
+
+"Yes, I remember him quite well, a perfectly decent sort of young
+fellow.  A rather forlorn hope, eh?"
+
+The flush had died away from Mary's cheek.  She had regained her
+self-control.  She spoke quite calmly.
+
+"Yes, I agree, but drowning people catch at a straw.  Let me ask him to
+dinner, and find out if he knows anything."
+
+Lord Saxham was certainly in his most benignant mood.
+
+"By all means.  He might be useful."
+
+Lady Mary wrote a note to Farquhar, addressed to his chambers in the
+Temple.  It was a somewhat formal letter--when she put pen to paper,
+Mary was always formal--inviting him to dine in Belgrave Square.
+
+Farquhar's first impulse was to refuse.  He had no wish to mingle with
+the aristocracy on unequal terms.  When he became Lord Chancellor, it
+would be a different matter.
+
+Then he thought of Lady Mary's winsome appearance, and he altered his
+mind.  He sent a note accepting the invitation.  But of course he knew
+why he was being asked.  They wanted to know if he could give any
+reliable information about Guy Rossett.
+
+He presented himself at Belgrave Square on the tick of the clock.  Not
+for him the _mauvais quart d'heure_ consecrated to meaningless
+conversation in the drawing-room.
+
+Lord Saxham shook him kindly by the hand.  Lady Mary was graciousness
+itself.  Could she ever be anything but kind, even if there was, at the
+back, a little subtle feminine diplomacy.
+
+It was a party of three, waited on in solemn state by the butler and two
+footmen.  There was not even a fourth to make matters even.  Farquhar
+smiled inwardly.  These two guileless persons, father and daughter, must
+have desired his company exceedingly!  Well, he would learn all about it
+later on.
+
+The servants had withdrawn.  The men smoked.  Lady Mary did not leave
+the room.  It was an informal party.  Farquhar puffed leisurely at his
+cigar.  He was awaiting developments.
+
+Saxham opened the ball.  He was a most undisciplined person.  He was
+always like a bull in a china shop, charging with blind fury.
+
+"It's about Guy, we're awfully anxious, you know," he said in his loud,
+resonant tones.  "I wonder if you can help us at all.  My daughter and
+Isobel tell me you are a great friend of Moreno."
+
+Beneath his somewhat pachydermatous exterior; Farquhar had a certain
+vein of sensitiveness.  He was now sure of what he had suspected.  He
+had been asked to dine for the purposes of being pumped for the
+information he could or could not give them.  Lord Saxham, in his blunt,
+vulgar fashion, had so unsuccessfully masked his hospitality.  Then he
+caught Lady Mary's pleading, almost shamefaced glance.
+
+"I can quite guess what is in your mind, Mr Farquhar, but I beg you to
+forgive our anxiety.  We are very pleased to see you here for your own
+sake.  If you can help us with Guy, we shall be doubly pleased."
+
+She leaned across, and said, in a whisper that did not reach Lord
+Saxham's ears, dulled with age:
+
+"My father will, unfortunately, always take the lead, but he is not
+always happy in his way of expressing himself."
+
+The rather stiff-backed young lawyer forgot his momentary resentment
+under the kind words of this charming young woman who could so
+graciously pour oil on the troubled waters.
+
+"Please, Lady Mary, tell me in what way I can serve you."  There was no
+stiffness in his tones.
+
+Lord Saxham had subsided now.  He gathered, in a dim sort of way, that
+he had put his foot in it, for about the thousandth time in his long
+career.  He was going to leave it all to his capable daughter.
+
+Mary drew her chair closer to the guest.  Lord Saxham, for the moment,
+was out of the picture.  Besides, he was nodding over his second glass
+of port.  It was better so, he was now incapable of mischief.
+
+Mary put her cards frankly on the table.
+
+"As I told you just now, we are very pleased to see you for yourself, as
+a cousin of dear Isobel, at least _I_ am certainly very pleased."  A
+faint colour suffused her cheek.
+
+Farquhar bowed.  No barrister can blush, but into his rather cold eyes
+there came a softer light which might be taken to express emotion.
+
+"Lady Mary, I am certain you are not a woman who would ever say anything
+you did not mean."
+
+"Of course, there was an ulterior motive," continued Mary, with her
+usual frankness.  The flush on her cheek had not quite died away; it had
+rather been revived by a compliment that she felt was meant to be
+sincere.
+
+"There was an ulterior motive, as I have candidly admitted.  We are very
+anxious about Guy.  Greatorex will tell us nothing, my father has been
+to him this morning, and he keeps his mouth shut.  We hear nothing from
+Guy, of course, he does not wish to alarm us.  Isobel writes short,
+chatty letters; naturally Guy does not tell her anything; she knows no
+more than we do.  The question is, Mr Farquhar, do you know anything?
+You can easily understand how anxious we are."
+
+Farquhar smoked on steadily.  It was some time before he spoke.  Lord
+Saxham was now slumbering peacefully after his heavy dinner and his
+third glass of port.  He looked just a little contemptuously at the
+somnolent figure.  At Lord Saxham's age, he expected to be Lord
+Chancellor, alert and vigorous.
+
+When he spoke, he did not answer her question.  Rather, he pursued the
+train of his own thoughts.
+
+"It seems to me.  Lady Mary," he said, speaking very softly, so that he
+should not disturb the slumbers of his host, "that in a measure you bear
+upon your shoulders--very capable shoulders, I will admit--the entire
+burden of your family."  Mary protested feebly.  "Oh, no, don't think
+that for a moment.  My father is very vigorous as a rule.  Eric is quite
+a nice boy, just a little wild, perhaps.  And Guy has got lots of grit;
+he will make good yet.  I cannot thank Isobel enough for teaching us how
+cowardly we were for wanting to have him recalled."
+
+"Isobel has tons of grit," said Farquhar shortly.  "She comes from a
+fighting line."
+
+"Yes, Isobel, as you say, has tons of grit."  Lady Mary looked at him
+curiously.  "You are very fond of your cousin, are you not, Mr
+Farquhar?"
+
+"I am very fond of Isobel," said the young barrister quietly.  "We were
+brought up as children together.  I was a few years her senior.  I used
+to carry her about as a little child."
+
+Mary looked at him again, and for a second time a faint flush dyed her
+fair cheek.
+
+"Will you think it very impertinent of me, Mr Farquhar, if I suggest
+that you were very much in love with your pretty cousin?"
+
+Farquhar shook his head.  "I don't deny it for a moment.  I was very
+much in love with Isobel.  I always wanted her for my wife, but the
+consideration of ways and means prevented.  When I did ask her, I
+learned that she had accepted your brother--"
+
+"And you are still in love with her?" questioned Mary, a little eagerly.
+
+"It is no use being in love with a girl who is betrothed to another man.
+It is one of those vain dreams that a sensible man dismisses.  Isobel
+Clandon is to me now a dear cousin, a good friend."  Somehow, Lady Mary
+looked relieved.  She spoke lightly.
+
+"You will get over it, and one day you will marry.  And when you are
+Lord Chancellor, your wife will be the first female subject in the
+kingdom."
+
+"And Isobel will be the wife of an Ambassador," said Farquhar.  "We
+shall run each other close, shall we not?"
+
+Mary laughed.  "Oh, Guy will never have stamina enough to become an
+Ambassador.  When he comes into dear old Aunt Henrietta's money, he will
+throw it all over, and lead his pleasant old idle life.  I know Guy too
+well."
+
+"Don't you think Isobel will put grit into him?"
+
+"Isobel is a loving woman.  She will always see eye to eye with Guy.
+Whatever he determines, she will acquiesce in."
+
+Farquhar sighed.  Ambition was always with him the dominating note.  He
+regretted its absence in others.
+
+"A pity," he said.  "With your family influence, he might go far."
+
+"He doesn't want to go far, Mr Farquhar," she whispered.  She pointed
+at the slumbering figure of Lord Saxham.  "My father has plenty of
+brains; if he had worked, he might have been Prime Minister, or very
+near it.  In the Rossett family, there is a certain amount of grit, but
+not quite enough to bring them to the foremost place."
+
+Farquhar leaned across the table.  This was certainly one of the most
+charming women he had ever met.
+
+"I say, Lady Mary, what a pity you are not a man.  If you had been, I am
+sure you would have put the Rossett family in their right place."  He
+cast a cautious glance at the still slumbering host.
+
+Lady Mary smiled pleasantly.  She was not ill-pleased with the genuine
+compliment.
+
+"Yes, perhaps, if I had been born a man.  I should certainly have been
+better than Eric, perhaps a shade better than Guy."  She broke off
+suddenly.  "But it is idle to talk of these things.  I am a woman, and
+must be contented with my lot, my humble sphere.  Now, can you tell me
+anything of my brother?"
+
+"You want me to tell you the truth, and you will not be afraid to hear
+it?"
+
+"No, I shall not be afraid."  She spoke very bravely, but he noticed
+that her hands were trembling.
+
+"I had a letter from Moreno this morning.  He tells me that the design
+against your brother has temporarily dropped into abeyance.  They had a
+very great _coup_ on--that has failed.  He has reason to suspect that
+they will now turn their attention to Mr Rossett."
+
+The tears coursed slowly down Mary's face.  The Earl slumbered on
+peacefully.
+
+Then she raised her head.  Her eyes flashed.  She looked angrily at her
+sleeping father.
+
+"Oh, our poor Guy.  And it is his fault,"--she pointed at the somnolent
+Earl--"his fault entirely.  He wanted to separate him from Isobel,
+because he thought she was not good enough for him.  He went to
+Greatorex, and with his influence he got this post at Madrid--and he has
+sent him to his death."  Farquhar felt very sympathetic.  No man can
+very properly appreciate his successful rival.  But he was forced to
+admit that there was something in Guy Rossett that appealed alike to men
+and women.
+
+"Now listen, Lady Mary!  Moreno tells me a lot, because to a certain
+extent I have been in it from the beginning.  I won't bore you with
+details.  Anyway, Moreno says he is quite certain he can save your
+brother.  Perhaps Moreno may be a little too cocksure, he is a very vain
+sort of fellow.  He goes so far as to hint that he might require my
+assistance."
+
+Mary looked puzzled.  "Your assistance!  But where do you come in, in
+this awful mix-up?"
+
+"It is perhaps a little difficult to explain."  It was one of the few
+occasions in his life on which the self-possessed young barrister had
+felt embarrassed.  "It is, perhaps, a little difficult to explain," he
+repeated.  "Moreno and I are very old friends.  He was one night in my
+chambers.  He extracted a promise from me that, if he called upon me, I
+would help your brother."
+
+Mary shot at him a swift and penetrating glance.  "I can understand, Mr
+Farquhar, that you and Mr Moreno are old friends, that you owe many a
+good turn to one another.  But my brother is nothing to you.  Why should
+you put yourself out of the way for him?"
+
+Farquhar temporised.  "One sometimes gives promises rather rashly, Lady
+Mary."
+
+There was a long pause before the woman spoke.
+
+"I think I can understand," she said.  "You gave that promise not
+because you cared for my brother, but because you wanted to help Isobel
+Clandon."
+
+Farquhar did not beat about the bush.  "Yes, I wanted to help Isobel.
+Naturally, I do not love your brother, but she loves him.  And her
+happiness is my first consideration."
+
+Mary looked at him with her soft, kindly eyes.  "I think of all the
+lovers I have heard or read of, you are the truest," she said, "and also
+the kindliest.  If our positions had been reversed, I rather doubt if I
+could have done that."
+
+But Farquhar shook his head.  "Oh, you are one of God's good women.  In
+any situation you would act a thousand times better than I should."
+
+Suddenly the somnolent Earl woke up, in full possession of his
+faculties.
+
+"Well, Farquhar, what do you know about Guy?"  He took the matter up
+from the point where it had been left in abeyance.
+
+Farquhar explained patiently that, in his opinion, Guy Rossett was in a
+position of considerable danger.
+
+Naturally, at this point, Lord Saxham went off at a violent tangent.
+
+"Then why the devil doesn't Greatorex recall him, as I have begged him
+to do.  Good heavens!  I have been supporting this wretched Government
+through thick and thin.  Can't they grant me this little favour?  My
+poor boy!  He doesn't want their infernal promotion.  He will inherit a
+big fortune from his great-aunt.  He can snap his fingers at Greatorex
+and the rest of them."
+
+Suddenly he began to sob, and buried his head in his hands.  "My poor
+murdered boy," he moaned.  "And Greatorex sent him to his death."
+
+Farquhar smoked on stolidly.  He did not feel greatly attracted towards
+his host.  Lady Mary shot a somewhat contemptuous glance at her penitent
+parent, who was seeking to throw the blame on Greatorex.
+
+"Pay no attention to him," she whispered across the table.  "The Foreign
+Office is not to blame.  He got Guy transferred abroad in order to
+separate him from Isobel.  I have told you."
+
+Farquhar understood and nodded.  He had already come to the conclusion
+that Lord Saxham was a very poor and weak creature--not a good specimen
+of his order.  How had he become possessed of such a daughter, so
+gentle, so high-minded?  There must have been some virility on the
+female side of the family.
+
+He drove back to his chambers in a rather exhilarated frame of mind.
+Lady Mary was very charming.  He had quite got over that first feeling
+that he was to be exploited for the benefit of the Rossett family.  Mary
+had put that all right, in her gentle, persuasive way.  She had
+expressly laid emphasis on the fact that she, at any rate, was pleased
+to welcome him for himself.
+
+He dismissed his taxi, and climbed up the steep stairs to his suite of
+rooms in one of the most cloistered courts of the Temple.  To his
+surprise, the light in the hall was burning.
+
+What had happened?  He went into the dining-room, a blaze of electric
+light.
+
+Stretched on the sofa, puffing at a long cigar, was Andres Moreno,
+awaiting his arrival.
+
+"The devil!" cried Farquhar shortly, sharply, and decisively.
+
+Moreno waved a genial hand.
+
+"Not exactly, old man, but one of his ambassadors.  I say, I suppose you
+can give me a shake-down."
+
+"Of course, but why are you here?  Why are you not in Spain?"
+
+"All will be unfolded in good time, my boy.  But what about a drink?  I
+could do with one."
+
+"You know where the things are.  Surely you could have helped yourself?"
+said Farquhar.
+
+"Never care to drink alone, old man.  By the way, I see you are in
+evening togs.  Have you been dining with the aristocracy?"
+
+"You've just hit it," replied Farquhar, as he went to the sideboard and
+fetched out a decanter of whiskey.  "I have been dining in Belgrave
+Square with the Earl of Saxham and his daughter.  Lady Mary Rossett."
+
+"Good heavens, this might be called a coincidence," cried Moreno, as he
+drained the refreshing draught offered to him.
+
+Farquhar was rather impatient at any exhibition of humour.  He frowned a
+little.
+
+"Now, Moreno, out with it.  What has brought you here?  I am delighted
+to see you, of course, but you have not come all this long journey for
+nothing."
+
+But Moreno was still in high spirits that were not to be abruptly
+quenched.
+
+"What a splendid Lord Chancellor you will make, always with both eyes on
+the practical, intolerant of anything that disturbs the even course of
+justice.  Perfect embodiment of the legal mind.  _A votre sante, mon
+ami_!"  He drained his glass.
+
+Farquhar looked at him critically.  "You're a bit of an ass to-night,
+aren't you?"
+
+"Not at all, most noble Festus.  Never was I saner than I am at the
+present hour.  Well, perhaps just at the moment I am suffering a little
+from swollen head.  I, the poor Fleet Street journalist--you remember,
+Farquhar, how they used to despise me in the early days--have outwitted
+the keenest brains of the anarchists.  I have made abortive their great
+_coup_."
+
+"I know," said Farquhar generously.  "My hearty congratulations, old
+man.  But still, you have not come all this way to tell me that.  You
+have something behind."
+
+Moreno's manner changed at once.  He sat down in an easy chair and
+became the solemn and grave personage who had important interests at
+stake.
+
+"You remember an interview in these chambers a little time ago, when you
+gave me a certain promise?"
+
+Farquhar remembered the incident well.
+
+"Yes, I gave you a certain promise.  You have come to remind me of it?"
+
+"Are you overwhelmed with briefs?"
+
+"I cannot exactly say I am overwhelmed with them, but I have enough to
+keep me going."
+
+"I see," said Moreno quietly.  He had cast aside his gay and chaffing
+mood; he was quite serious.  "Can you depute those to somebody?"
+
+"If it were imperative, I could."
+
+Moreno rose and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder.
+
+"Good!  Then I claim your promise.  Pack your bag to-morrow morning and
+come with me to Spain.  I am going to outwit them again.  I might do it
+single-handed, but your assistance will be invaluable.  Will you come?"
+
+"It is to help Guy Rossett?"
+
+"It is to help Isobel Clandon through Guy Rossett.  I will explain
+everything as we travel together to-morrow."
+
+"I adhere to my promise," said Farquhar.  "I will make all my
+arrangements in the morning.  I shall be at your disposal after twelve.
+How long will you want me for?"
+
+"A week at the outside."
+
+Moreno stifled a yawn.  In spite of his vigorous constitution, he was
+very tired.
+
+"Let us turn in, old man.  I feel as if I could sleep the clock round."
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
+
+Contraras paid a flying visit to London.  It was a secret visit, that is
+to say he stayed in an obscure hotel in the East of London, not
+venturing to his house in Fitzjohn's Avenue.  His wife and daughter
+believed him to be still in Spain, from where he wrote letters to them
+at irregular intervals.  He was far too busy to attend closely to
+domestic correspondence.
+
+Moreover, like many great reformers, he had little in common with his
+family.  His wife openly sneered at his doctrines; privately she thought
+he was a hypocrite who lacked the courage to practise what he preached,
+to lead the simple life which he was inculcating upon others.  Their
+only child fully endorsed the mother's sentiments.
+
+Moreover, she was in love with a young man who had been attracted to her
+by the report of her father's wealth.  He was a poor cadet of an old and
+aristocratic family, and conservative to the backbone.  The slightest
+word of this somewhat empty-headed young man outweighed the most
+profound arguments of the intellectual Contraras.
+
+She was very dissatisfied with her parent, with what she considered his
+nonsensical theories of perfect equality.  Miss Contraras was quite
+content to take the world as she found it.  She did not trouble her head
+about the woes of the humbler classes.  As long as she could live softly
+and have plenty of new frocks, she was happy.  Why should people with
+brains trouble to keep those who could not keep themselves?
+
+Contraras came over to be present at a special meeting of the English
+section of the brotherhood, held, as usual, at Maceda's restaurant.  The
+great _coup_ had failed, but he was still undaunted, still full of
+resolution.
+
+There were only about half a dozen choice spirits present.  Maceda, for
+this special occasion, had delegated to his manager the task of looking
+after his comfortable little establishment.
+
+Both Lucue and the restaurant keeper greeted their Chief with a
+sorrowful air.  Maceda voiced their mutual sentiments.
+
+"The iron must have entered into your soul, comrade.  So near to
+success, and then to fail.  And then, the fate of poor Valerie, so
+bright, so clever, so full of enthusiasm for the cause!"
+
+The leader's voice broke a little as he answered: "Alas, poor Valerie--a
+fate worse than death.  How she will eat out that brave heart of hers in
+their loathsome dungeons!"
+
+He passed his hand across his brow, as if in that action he was trying
+to brush away a painful reminiscence.  But the next moment he was again
+the man of action, of indomitable resolve.
+
+"I think never again will I sanction the use of women in enterprises of
+this character, however willing they may be to take the risk and pay the
+penalty of failure.  And now to our immediate business.  How are things
+progressing in this country?"
+
+Both Lucue and Maceda, but especially the former, who had only the
+business of the propaganda to attend to, gave him a most encouraging
+report.
+
+There was great dissatisfaction amongst the masses, a growing hatred of
+the class that neither toils nor spins.  Many of the most influential
+leaders were in secret sympathy with their doctrines, and only waited
+for a favourable moment to come out into the open.
+
+The fanatical Contraras rubbed his hands; his brow cleared.  He had
+forgotten Valerie Delmonte, that too responsive instrument upon whose
+warped feelings he had so skilfully played.  She was only a martyr in a
+righteous cause.
+
+He listened eagerly to the details with which Lucue supplied him.  He
+could see already the dawn of that universal revolution which, if it
+came to pass, would claim him for one of the earliest victims.
+
+And then, when Lucue had finished, the elder man spoke a little
+impatiently.
+
+"But why did we fail in Madrid?  Have you suspicions of anybody?  After
+all, the secret was very carefully guarded.  How many of us knew?"
+Lucue shrugged his shoulders.  "Is it much use going into that?  We
+might all suspect each other.  Moreno was over here a short time ago.
+We conversed together on the subject."
+
+"Ah, Moreno was over here, was he?"  The Chief's brows knitted; he spoke
+in a suspicious voice.  "Do you know on what business?"
+
+"Purely private affairs, I understand.  Something connected with his
+journalistic profession.  But we were discussing the matter, and he
+suggested a very reasonable theory."
+
+"And what was that?" interrupted Contraras.  "His opinion was, to start
+with, that women should never be employed in enterprises of this
+character, because they had not sufficient nerve.  His theory is that
+there was no treachery from our side, because if there had been they
+would never have allowed her to get inside the Palace, they would have
+arrested her at the entrance."
+
+"It seems feasible," interrupted the Chief.  "He thinks that Valerie got
+nervous and overstrung, that she detached herself too early from her
+chaperon, that the numerous spies who were watching got suspicious of
+her movements, and arrested her on the off-chance."
+
+Contraras nodded his head, as he added, "It might be so, and it is quite
+true that women lose their heads more quickly than men, when things are
+not running exactly in the beaten track."
+
+"Of course, as you may or may not know, our friend Moreno, although a
+very excellent fellow, is one of the vainest of men.  He boasted that if
+you had given him the job he would have done it successfully.  And I
+have sufficient faith in him to believe he would."
+
+Lucue spoke quite warmly.  It was not a little to the journalist's
+credit that he had succeeded in persuading this rather suspicious man
+both of his ability and his _bona fides_.
+
+Contraras reflected for a few moments.  "I have great confidence in your
+judgment, Lucue.  You have known this man for a long time, eh?"
+
+"For six or seven years, I should say."
+
+It was perfectly true.  Moreno had been coquetting with Lucue and the
+brotherhood, and half a dozen other things, for quite a period.
+
+"And you trust him implicitly?  He is making much money?"
+
+"A little more than he used.  But he tells me he is miserably paid, that
+the capitalists he works for suck his brains to swell their own enormous
+profits."
+
+Contraras smiled.  "He has brains, and he is poorly paid--in a word, he
+enriches the drones.  He seems just our man, Lucue."
+
+"I am sure of it," answered the other warmly.
+
+"Good!  I shall be seeing him in Madrid very shortly.  We will try his
+mettle.  He shall have the management of the next _coup_."
+
+"And that, I take it, is the removal of that busy marplot, Guy Rossett?"
+
+"Yes," said Contraras shortly.  "But keep it to yourself and Maceda as
+much as possible.  I won't have too many people in the know this time."
+
+Lucue and Maceda promised to observe silence.  The other members of the
+fraternity had drawn respectfully aside while the three chiefs conversed
+together.  Jaques, otherwise Mr Jackson, arrived presently, and was
+informed of the conversation.  He was always to be trusted.  He was as
+great an enthusiast as Contraras himself.
+
+"How is my little Violet getting on?" he asked.
+
+"So far she has done good quiet work," was the chief's answer.  "Of
+course, she never had the grit of poor Valerie, nor, I think, the
+enthusiasm."
+
+"Possibly, possibly," agreed Jaques, who was very fond of his pretty
+protegee.  "But still, if she is a bit slow, she is certainly very sure.
+And, although we must all make sacrifices in the great cause when we
+are called upon, I am glad to think she is not in the position of poor
+Valerie.  Ah, what a fate!"
+
+The cunning old rogue, who was making money hand over fist, sighed in
+real or pretended sorrow for the unhappy young Frenchwoman whose ardent
+sympathies had landed her in such a plight.  Jaques had given plenty of
+money to the cause, but, like Contraras, he had never greatly risked his
+precious skin.
+
+The next day Contraras returned to Madrid.  He could safely leave Jaques
+and Lucue to look after affairs in England.
+
+After the failure of the great _coup_, there had been a little
+re-shuffling.  Somoza, the educated young fisherman, a burning and a
+shining light in the brotherhood, and Alvedero were stationed at
+Fonterrabia.  Zorrilta was superintending affairs at Barcelona.
+
+Contraras, the wealthy and magnificent, still maintained his quarters in
+the palatial hotel in the Plaza de Canovas.  Moreno and Violet Hargrave
+were in Madrid also, but they had lodgings in a humbler quarter of the
+city.
+
+Moreno often smiled when he thought what humbug it all was, this
+profession of democracy and equality.  Because they were, comparatively
+speaking, humble members of the brotherhood, they were stowed away in
+poky lodgings.  Contraras had a suite of rooms at the best hotel in the
+city, and went occasionally to Court.
+
+"What a gigantic farce," he thought.  "As if you could alter the
+primeval instincts of human nature by a carefully adjusted system of
+labels.  And, as for tyranny and oppression, if I were a Spanish
+citizen, I would rather live under the rule of Alfonso than that of
+Contraras.  If the old man got into the saddle, there would be plenty of
+shooting.  He would make short work of those who didn't agree with him,
+without the formality of a trial."
+
+Contraras was a wary old schemer.  He had many visitors at his hotel--
+men of light and leading in the city, the aristocratic connections of
+his wife.  But he never allowed his anarchist subordinates to come near
+him.  He was much too clever for that.  He went to them.
+
+On the evening of the day on which he returned to Madrid, he met Moreno
+and Violet Hargrave at the journalist's modest lodgings, by appointment.
+
+Moreno, who was always fond of indulging in humorous jokes, would have
+liked to apologise to the wealthy Contraras for receiving him in such
+humble surroundings, with some caustic allusion to the time when all men
+would be equal.
+
+But he forbore.  Contraras was too serious a person to indulge in humour
+himself, or tolerate it in others.  Besides, Moreno had special reasons
+for ingratiating himself with his Chief, whom he privately stigmatised
+as a "silly old visionary," and whose chances against the organised
+forces of law and order he was not prepared to back.
+
+Contraras was very gracious to his two subordinates.  Whatever his
+defects, he had the true note of Spanish courtesy.
+
+He turned first to Violet Hargrave.  "I have just come from London,
+where I met our dear friend Jaques.  He inquired most tenderly after
+you, and sent through me his kindest remembrances."
+
+Violet looked very pleased.  If there was a tender spot in her heart, it
+was for the old moneylender, who had been a father to her.  She flushed
+a little; quite a soft light came into her eyes.
+
+"That was very sweet of him.  He really has a heart of gold, dear old
+Juan," she said softly.
+
+Moreno looked at her curiously.  He had not got to the bottom of her
+yet.  A hardened adventuress, pure and simple--that was how he had first
+judged her.  But her kindly mention of Jaques, "an old shark of the
+first water," as the young journalist classed him in his own mind,
+revealed something that he had not credited her with.  Had she, after
+all, a capacity for emotion, did she possess any real womanly instincts?
+
+Contraras next addressed himself to Moreno.
+
+"I also met in London our comrade Lucue, the man who introduced you to
+the brotherhood."
+
+"Ah, what a great man!" cried Moreno, with the fervour of a new and
+enthusiastic recruit.  "The only man, in my opinion, who would ever be
+worthy to wear your mantle, if ever it should drop from your shoulders.
+May that day be far distant!" he added piously.
+
+Contraras, ever pleased with a little judicious flattery, became more
+amiable than ever.  The glance he bent upon the young journalist was
+almost a benevolent one.
+
+"Lucue speaks very highly of you, and I have always had the greatest
+confidence in his judgment.  He tells me, and, as he did not say it in
+confidence, I can repeat it, you expressed your opinion that we made a
+mistake in allowing Valerie to undertake the great _coup_.  You added
+that if you had been entrusted with it, you would have brought it off."
+
+The question was a supreme test of Moreno's modesty, but he was not
+taken aback.  He turned the situation lightly, and with his usual
+assurance.
+
+"I am certain I should have done," he said composedly.
+
+Contraras frowned a little.  He had been very fond of Valerie Delmonte;
+he rather resented any criticism of her.
+
+"Why are you so sure, comrade Moreno?  Valerie was very clever, very
+subtle.  Are you more so?"
+
+The young man looked at his chief calmly.  "I daresay she was much more
+clever, much more subtle than I am, but she lacked my nerve."
+
+"Ah, there is something in that," agreed the older man.  "A woman may
+have the brains of a man, I agree, that is to say, an exceptional woman,
+but come to a crucial moment, and the brain will be dominated by the
+nerves.  It is the penalty of the sex."
+
+The Chief ruminated over these remarks a few seconds before he spoke
+again.
+
+"Well, Moreno, I am going to give you a chance to prove your mettle.
+You know the next item on our programme is the removal of Guy Rossett."
+Moreno nodded.  He had shot a side glance at Violet Hargrave, but she
+had betrayed no sign of emotion.  And yet, in the flat at Mount Street,
+she had alluded to the project in a spirit of exultation.
+
+"It was the first item on the programme, and was shelved in favour of
+the later one.  What do you mean precisely by the term `removal'?"
+Contraras shrugged his shoulders.  "That I have not yet quite decided
+upon.  The first thing is to get hold of him."
+
+"That is quite easy," said Moreno in his usual quiet way.
+
+Contraras looked at him sharply.  "You speak very confidently, Moreno.
+You appreciate the difficulties in the way?  To get him either out of
+the Embassy or his flat will be a tough job.  He is well guarded, you
+may depend."
+
+"I appreciate all the difficulties, Contraras.  To get him out of the
+Embassy is well nigh impossible.  To get him out of the flat is the
+easier job of the two.  Well, I will undertake to bring him to any place
+you like."
+
+"Your methods?" queried Contraras, in the same sharp tone.
+
+Moreno bowed with great courtesy to his titular Chief.
+
+"Pardon me for declining to answer that question at present.  I am a
+very new member of the brotherhood, I have my spurs to win, I have to
+justify your confidence in me, or I should rather say the confidence of
+Lucue, for you know next to nothing of me.  I want to show you that I am
+a little more clever, a little more subtle than perhaps you imagine.
+When I deliver him to you, I will possibly explain my methods, not
+before."
+
+"You will undertake to deliver him to us?" questioned Contraras, still
+speaking a little doubtfully.  He was, however, very much impressed by
+the young man's confident manner.
+
+"On any day, at any hour you like to name," was the reassuring reply.
+
+"I will settle the details later on," said Contraras, his voice
+betraying a note of agitation.  "Anyway, I depute you and Violet
+Hargrave to see that this thing is carried out."
+
+Moreno looked at the woman.  "You will be my assistant in this?" he
+asked.
+
+Her voice was very low.  "Of course, if the Chief wishes it."
+
+Contraras spoke in his most authoritative tones.  "You have no choice.
+You took a solemn oath to obey the orders of the Chiefs of the
+organisation.  As your Chief, I call upon you to do this."
+
+Violet Hargrave bowed her head submissively.  She remembered there was a
+terrible penalty attached to hesitation or disobedience.  She also
+recalled the fate of Valerie Delmonte, and her face went white.
+
+Moreno thought to himself, "Infernal old scoundrel, he doesn't care whom
+he sacrifices.  And in the meanwhile he is living in luxury, and getting
+us poor devils to run all the risk."
+
+Aloud he said: "And what will you do with Guy Rossett when I deliver him
+to you?"
+
+Contraras reflected before he spoke.  "As I told you just now, I have
+not quite made up my mind."  He paused, and struck an imposing attitude.
+"You know, Moreno, it has always been my policy to strike at the head
+and heart of this effete system.  The humbler members, mere tools of
+their superiors--well, I would be inclined to show them mercy."
+
+"I know that has always been your generous inclination," replied Moreno,
+masking his loathing of this fanatical creature.  "Well, I should say
+Rossett was quite a tool, very poor game."
+
+"I am inclined to agree with you.  Still, he is active and dangerous,
+and a menace to the Cause.  He knows too much about many of us."
+
+"Quite true, quite true," said Moreno.  He had an object in humouring
+this venerable visionary.  He wanted to know what was at the back of his
+mind, what dark scheme he was working out in his subtle brain!
+
+Contraras spoke in a meditative voice.  "These Englishmen are strange
+people; they have a great respect for their word."
+
+"It is one of their peculiarities," admitted Moreno drily.
+
+"If he would take a solemn oath to resign his post, and withdraw himself
+from any further opposition to the brotherhood, I think I would accept
+that, and let him go free."
+
+"And that, I am afraid, is just the thing you will never induce an
+Englishman to do," said Moreno bluntly.  "I know the type too well.
+Better death than dishonour, all that sort of thing, you know.  It's in
+their blood."
+
+Contraras smiled oddly.  "In that case, I think there is only one
+course.  It is regrettable, it is repugnant to me.  But the safety of
+the brotherhood is my first consideration."
+
+Moreno had learned all he wanted to know.  He knew now what was working
+in that fanatical brain.
+
+"I understand," he said quietly.  He added with the most apparent
+sincerity.  "The safety of the brotherhood must always be the first
+thought.  I quite agree."
+
+Shortly after, Contraras left to return to his luxurious hotel.  He
+parted from the two with many expressions of good-will.  He was disposed
+to confirm Lucue's high opinion of Moreno.  There was a confident
+bearing about the young man that impressed him.  He was sure that he
+would prove a valuable recruit to the brotherhood.
+
+They were left alone--the man quite young, the woman still comparatively
+youthful.
+
+Moreno spoke first.  "We have been assigned a post of honour, but it is
+also a post of danger.  Don't you think so?"
+
+Mrs Hargrave shivered.  "When I remember poor Valerie Delmonte, I must
+confess I don't feel very brave.  But you spoke very confidently of
+being able to snare Rossett."
+
+"I am quite confident of being able to do that."
+
+"I suppose you won't tell me why you are so confident of the fact?"
+
+Moreno shook his head.  "No, I certainly won't.  In this business, never
+let your left hand know what your right hand doeth."
+
+She shot at him a rather coquettish glance, which thrilled him just a
+little.  She was certainly a very pretty and fascinating woman.
+
+"I am to be trusted, really, you know," she pleaded.  "I can be as close
+as wax."
+
+"I will tell you some day," he answered.  He thought, as he spoke, the
+day might be a very long one.
+
+"But you will tell Contraras and everybody then," she pouted.  "I
+thought we had been such pails."
+
+It suddenly dawned upon him that this adventuress, as he had always
+looked upon her, was falling in love with him.  He was not quite certain
+that he was not falling in love a little bit with her.  If he were only
+certain that in her were the makings of a good woman!  But he would
+require great proofs of that.
+
+He broke a rather embarrassed silence.
+
+"Well, now you will get your revenge on Guy Rossett."
+
+"I am not quite so certain that I want it now."  She spoke in a very low
+voice.
+
+"But this is a very different mood from that of a certain night at Mount
+Street."
+
+"I know, I know."  Violet spoke a little wildly.  "I was very bitter
+then.  Things seemed changed somehow."
+
+"You know that Guy Rossett has to be `removed,' in obedience to the
+orders of our revered chief?"
+
+"I know, I know."  Suddenly she burst into bitter sobbing.  Presently
+she lifted her tear-stained face.  "You think I am a very bad woman,
+don't you?  I am not really, only hard and embittered with my early
+life.  If I could only find somebody who really cared for me!"
+
+It was a clear invitation.  Moreno took her hand in his; he could not
+disguise from himself that he was attracted.  But, at the same time, he
+did not lose his head.  Could he trust her--would she be useful for his
+purpose?
+
+"Suppose that I said I cared?"
+
+Violet sobbed afresh.  "No, no, it is impossible.  You would never
+believe in me, you could never trust me."
+
+And then Moreno leaned forward and spoke to her, very gravely.
+
+"I think, before you leave, we must have a little conversation together.
+When it is finished, I will tell you whether I trust you or not."
+
+CHAPTER NINETEEN.
+
+It was a long time before Moreno spoke.  It was evident that, in her
+present mood, Violet Hargrave was perfectly prepared to be made love to.
+It was not the first time it had occurred to him that this woman of
+mixed nationality like himself was more than usually attracted by him.
+
+But although he was one of the vainest men living in certain respects,
+notably in the high estimate in which he always held his own capacity
+and mental qualities, still in other matters he was fairly modest.
+Every man can get some woman to fall in love with him, or, at any rate,
+to profess affection.  Some day he would come across a woman whom he
+could impress sufficiently to justify him in asking her to marry him.
+For the time would come when, like other men, even of the most roving
+disposition, he would want to say good-bye to adventure and settle down
+quietly.
+
+As regards his personal appearance, he was quite a just and
+dispassionate critic.  He could look in the glass and sum up the general
+verdict that would be passed by the opposite sex.  In appearance he was
+rather short and squat.  His features, somewhat irregular, were redeemed
+from plainness by a pair of very brilliant dark eyes, and a perfect set
+of strong white teeth.
+
+Still, he had not the makings of a Don Juan in him; he was not the sort
+of man whose path was likely to be strewn with conquests; not the type
+of man, like Guy Rossett, for instance, on whom most women looked with a
+kindly eye, even on their first acquaintance.
+
+Under ordinary circumstances, Violet's attitude could hardly be
+misinterpreted.  The misty eyes raised appealingly to his, the soft
+inflections in her voice said as plainly as words could speak that here
+was a woman fully ready to respond at the first hint from him.
+
+But he was very cautious; he felt he must proceed warily.  He must never
+forget that this woman had been, more or less, an adventuress from her
+girlhood, the associate of desperate and callous men, who hesitated at
+nothing in the attainment of their objects.  Not so very long ago, she
+had exulted in the prospect of obtaining a terrible revenge, through
+others, on the man she had once professed to love.
+
+Why had she turned, so suddenly, as it seemed, from this vengeance, had
+almost said that she no longer desired revenge?  In an ordinary woman,
+the explanation would have been simple.  Rossett now no longer aroused
+her love or hate because she had found a new lover in Moreno himself.
+
+Always severe to himself in these purely personal matters, he asked
+himself the candid question if a woman so attractive as she undoubtedly
+was could turn from a man of Rossett's physical advantages to himself?
+
+Years ago, he had loved devotedly a simple little girl with no
+pretensions to beauty or great charm, possessing only average
+intelligence.  He had loved her for her sweet nature, her good
+qualities.  And she had loved him in return.
+
+But this was an entirely different matter.  That poor little dead girl,
+still a very tender memory, had never had any other lover but himself.
+Violet Hargrave, with her powers of fascination, her blonde prettiness,
+her quick mentality, must have had many men at her feet.
+
+Did the foreign element in him attract the foreign element in her?  It
+might be so, but he could not be sure of that.  In many things he was
+more Spanish in thought and feeling than English, but she was more
+English than Spanish in everything, of that he was convinced.
+
+Had he been a few years younger, had he enjoyed less experience in life,
+have thought less over social problems, anarchist doctrines might have
+appealed to him very strongly.  He was sure they would never appeal to
+her, the English strain in her was too strong.
+
+When he spoke, he put a very leading question.
+
+"I have often wondered whether you are really greatly interested in the
+Cause?  Whether the methods we have to adopt are not somewhat repugnant
+to you?"
+
+He looked at her very steadfastly.  He judged her to be an admirable
+actress, but he noticed she did not meet his glance.  Perhaps if she was
+really attracted by him, as she seemed to be, it was not so easy to act.
+
+She spoke a little nervously.  "What on earth has made you think that?
+Why should I be here if I were not sincere?  I joined the organisation
+of my own free will.  Juan Jaques, who was my sponsor, explained
+everything very clearly to me."
+
+Moreno spoke lightly.  "You have been comfortably off for many years,
+and you are more English than foreign.  Anarchist principles don't take
+deep root in English soil."
+
+"My father was a revolutionary at heart, although not an active one,"
+she said hastily.  "Of course, I don't suppose my mother thought about
+such things."
+
+Moreno was too polite to say he did not believe in that little fiction
+about her father.  This derelict parent might not have had a very great
+love for the social institutions from which he did not derive much
+benefit.  But from a natural dissatisfaction with his own lot to
+professed anarchy was a long step.
+
+"It runs in the blood naturally, then, that I can understand.  Still, it
+puzzles me.  Women don't think very seriously about these matters--or,
+at any rate, only a very few of them.  And women of means are hardly
+likely to be keen on upsetting a world in which they are fairly
+comfortable, in favour of a new dispensation, the results of which are
+highly problematical."
+
+She fenced with him a little longer.  "Why are you so sure I was
+comfortably off?" she queried.
+
+"I think you must have forgotten what you told me.  Your husband made
+money through the good offices of Jaques, and that money became yours.
+That flat in Mount Street was not run on a small income."
+
+She became a little agitated under his rather ruthless cross-examination
+and suggestions.
+
+"The money that was left me was not enough to support me comfortably.  I
+had to turn to other means of support."
+
+"You would not care to tell me what they were?"  Of course he had heard
+rumours about that Mount Street establishment, that the host and hostess
+were suspiciously lucky at cards.  The man, at any rate, had always
+suffered from a shady reputation.
+
+She became more agitated.  "Yes, it is quite simple.  I have been
+well-paid for my services by Jaques."
+
+"Then it was simply money that induced you to join the brotherhood?"
+
+"Money, combined with my natural sympathy with their objects."
+
+Moreno appeared to accept the explanation.  Jaques seemed, then, to have
+paid her handsomely for her services.  But evidently he had not paid her
+enough, or she would not have trafficked with Guy Rossett and sold him
+important secrets.
+
+It was some little time before he spoke again, and then he played his
+trump card.
+
+He left the personal question altogether, and spoke of the affairs of
+the brotherhood.
+
+"There must be traitors amongst us," he said presently, "although I do
+not think they are to be found in Spain--so many things have leaked
+out."
+
+"Yes."  She spoke very quickly.  "There was the failure of poor Valerie
+Delmonte.  Do you think there was treachery there?"
+
+"I rather doubt it," answered Moreno easily.  "My theory has always been
+that she drew suspicion on herself by her inexperience, her amateurish
+methods, her suspicious movements when she got inside the Palace.  If
+the job had been entrusted to me, with my steady nerves, I think I
+should have been successful.  I boasted as much to Contraras, and I
+suppose that is the reason he has given me this job."
+
+Violet was silent.  Moreno went on smoothly.
+
+"But with regard to that affair of Guy Rossett, the information he got
+which, for the moment, frustrated our plans--that was clearly the work
+of a traitor.  That happened just before I came on the scene, but Lucue
+has told me all about it."
+
+He was looking at her very steadfastly.  She was trying to avoid his
+gaze, but those dark, brilliant eyes of his drew her lighter ones with a
+certain mesmeric power.
+
+She was not acting well to-night, he thought.  There crept into her
+troubled glance a shadow of fear.  She tried to speak lightly,
+indifferently, but her voice broke and faltered, in spite of her efforts
+at self-control.
+
+"It seems like it.  Have you any idea of who the traitor was?"
+
+Moreno rose and walked over to the little shabby sofa, typical furniture
+of the mean lodgings, where she sat.  He flung at her the direct
+challenge.
+
+"It is not a question of having an idea.  _I know_."  She laughed
+hysterically; she hardly knew what she was saying.  "You think you know,
+perhaps.  Probably you have been led to suspect the wrong person."
+
+"Not when I have seen the actual memoranda, not when I have a photograph
+of that memoranda in my possession, to show, if necessary, to
+Contraras."
+
+For a moment she seemed paralysed.  All the colour left her cheeks.  She
+could only clasp her hands together and moan piteously.
+
+Moreno spoke quite gently.  "Violet Hargrave, you haven't an ounce of
+fight left in you.  Give in and own you sold those secrets to Guy
+Rossett.  I expect he paid a handsome sum for them--and probably because
+you sold them, you lost your lover."
+
+She burst into a fit of wild sobbing, and threw herself at his feet.
+She had not the heroic spirit of Valerie Delmonte.  She was only a very
+commonplace adventuress, with a well-defined streak of cowardice in her.
+Like Madame Du Barri, she would have gone shrieking to her death.
+
+"Are you going to denounce me?" she cried wildly.
+
+Moreno was a kind-hearted man.  To an extent he despised her, although
+he was half in love with her.  But he could not but feel pitiful at the
+spectacle of her abject terror.
+
+"That depends," he said quietly.  "It is quite possible we may drive a
+bargain."
+
+Reassured by those conciliatory words, the woman speedily recovered her
+self-control.  She rose from her kneeling attitude, brushed the tears
+from her eyes, adjusted her disordered hair.  As long as she escaped
+with life, she would consent to any bargain.
+
+What a mercy she had not been found out by Contraras, or some equally
+implacable and fanatical member of the brotherhood!  In that case, her
+shrift would have been very short.  This black-browed young man, born of
+a Spanish father and an English mother, had this much of the English
+strain in him, that he leaned to the side of mercy.
+
+"How did you find out?  How did you suspect?" were her first words when
+she had recovered herself.
+
+"What first led me to suspect.  I cannot quite explain--it was a sort of
+intuition.  When I once suspected, the rest was easy."
+
+"It was Guy Rossett who gave me away?" she cried, and an angry gleam
+came into her eyes.
+
+Moreno looked at her a little contemptuously.
+
+"And you have known this man well, and loved him!  Are you not a
+shrewder judge of human nature than to harbour such a suspicion?  Why,
+Rossett is just that dogged type of Englishman who would rather be put
+to death than betray a confidence."
+
+Violet looked a little ashamed.  "But if not from him, how did you
+obtain your information?"
+
+"That is my affair.  When I have quite assured myself that I can trust
+you, I may tell you.  It suffices that I hold in my possession the
+photograph of that document.  By the way, you lost your head when you
+gave yourself away like that, because your handwriting is known to
+several.  Why did you not dictate your notes to Rossett and let him take
+them down?  Then you might never have been found out."
+
+"I know I was a fool," answered Mrs Hargrave bitterly.  "I suppose all
+criminals make mistakes at times.  I was terribly hard up at the time; I
+was in desperate want of money.  I pitched a plausible tale to Guy,
+which I believe he swallowed at the time."
+
+"Ah!" said Moreno.  Then it was not on account of this transaction that
+Rossett had broken off his relations with the pretty widow.  The cause
+was no doubt to be sought in Isobel Clandon.
+
+"I pretended that a Spaniard whom I had known in my youth was ready to
+turn traitor for a handsome consideration.  He had confided these notes
+to me, and I had taken them down from his dictation.  Of course, I ought
+to have done as you said.  I was so eager for the money that I did not
+stop to think."
+
+"And you are quite sure that Rossett did not suspect you of being a
+member of the brotherhood?"
+
+"Positive.  He is not naturally a suspicious man, not like yourself, for
+instance.  I pretended that this man, the imaginary man, was an old
+friend of my father's, that he hated the whole business and wanted to
+get out of it."
+
+Moreno pondered a little.  In spite of her physical attraction for him,
+she was a pretty bad character on her own admissions.  She had owned her
+great obligations to Jaques, who, rascal that he was, had been her
+benefactor.  And yet she was ready to sell Jaques and the Cause he held
+so dear at heart for ready money.  Was it possible a woman with this
+unscrupulous and predatory temperament could ever become a reformed
+character?  And, if so, was he a likely man to bring about the miracle?
+Passionate love might work wonders, but was she not a little past the
+age of passionate love?
+
+"Let us come to the point," he said abruptly.  "I take it you no longer
+desire what we politely term the `removal' of Guy Rossett."
+
+"Certainly not.  I don't know that I ever really desired it."
+
+Moreno raised his hand.  "Don't forget that night at the flat in Mount
+Street."
+
+"I know, I remember perfectly.  I gave you a very bad impression of
+myself.  I was angry, humiliated, bitterly jealous of a younger woman
+who had taken him from me."
+
+Moreno thought he understood.  "And the Spanish side came uppermost
+then.  You could have run a dagger into the pair of them at the moment,
+and perhaps after you had done it, sat down and wept because you had
+killed the man.  I don't suppose you would have shed a tear over the
+woman--she would have deserved her fate."
+
+Violet was recovering herself fast.  The colour had come back into her
+cheeks.  She looked at him admiringly.
+
+"You seem to know something of my delightful sex," she said, with a
+faint smile.  Then, after a pause, she added, "And you want to drive a
+bargain with me, don't you, in return for not denouncing me?"
+
+Moreno assented.  "You are quite right.  You say you now don't desire
+the removal of Rossett.  To be quite frank, no more do I."
+
+She looked at him sharply out of her tear-dimmed eyes, red and swollen
+with the violent weeping of a few seconds ago.
+
+"But why do you wish to spare Guy Rossett?  You say you are a true son
+of the Revolution."
+
+"I am," replied Moreno composedly.  "I am with certain reservations."
+He felt he could not trust her too implicitly yet.  "When they attack
+the Heads, the great ones of the earth, I am in the heartiest sympathy
+with them--that is the way to obtain our ends.  But I draw the line at
+making martyrs of the small fry, the mere instruments, the humble tools
+of the despotic system.  I think it brings justly deserved odium on us.
+To remove an inoffensive person like Rossett is worse than a crime, it
+is a blunder.  If the great Revolution is coming, how can a feeble
+person like him stop its impetuous course?"
+
+Violet Hargrave listened attentively.  When was he going to suggest the
+terms of the bargain?
+
+"Will you help me to save young Rossett?  It is the price of my silence.
+You can do nothing against me.  Whatever innuendos or suggestions you
+might make, if such occur to you, would not weigh a moment against the
+damning evidence in my possession.  They would only regard it as the
+frantic action of a guilty woman, trying to save herself from their
+vengeance."
+
+He thought it wise to rub this in.  He did not believe she was very
+clever, but she was cunning.  He wanted to divert her from any idea of
+attempting to readjust the situation to her own advantage.
+
+"You show me very plainly you don't trust me, by that somewhat
+unnecessary warning," she said a little bitterly.  She was hardened
+enough, heaven knows, but the distrust of the man she had grown to care
+for hurt her more than she liked to admit.
+
+"I am not quite a fool," she added.  "You have the whip-hand of me, I
+admit frankly.  If I thought to match myself against you, and bluff it
+out, I recognise I have not a dog's chance.  Yes, I am willing to help
+you to save Guy Rossett.  But I would like you to tell me why you want
+so particularly to save him."
+
+But Moreno was not going to satisfy her curiosity.  He gave her one of
+his reasons.
+
+"Because I hate and loathe unnecessary bloodshed," was his answer.
+
+There was a long pause, during which Violet's mind worked rapidly.
+
+"Are you very sure in your own mind how you are going to save him?" she
+asked presently.  "I mean, so that we can go scot free."
+
+Self would always be the predominating note, he thought.  Well, perhaps
+that was natural.
+
+He tapped his forehead significantly.
+
+"I have pretty well worked it out here; there are just a few details to
+be filled in.  With regard to our own personal safety, I feel pretty
+confident I shall be unsuspected.  As for you, I will guarantee it.  I
+will see you every day, as my plans develop."
+
+Violet rose to say good night.  There was genuine admiration in her
+glance, as she held out her hand.
+
+"I believe you are a very wonderful man," she said, in a tone of
+conviction.
+
+Moreno smiled, well pleased with the delicate flattery.  He always had a
+kindly feeling towards anybody who praised his mental qualities.
+
+He saw her to the door.  As they parted, she lifted up her face.
+
+"You would not care to kiss a woman of my type--bad, selfish and
+unscrupulous as you know me to be?" she said boldly.
+
+For a second he hesitated.  Then he kissed her lightly on her pale
+cheek.  He could not bring himself yet to touch her lips.
+
+"Anyway, you are going to do a good thing now," he said, as she passed
+out.
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY.
+
+During these hot summer days, poor Isobel lived in alternate fits of
+hope and despair.
+
+Guy visited her every day.  He always seemed very cheerful, full of
+optimism.  The forces of law and order must prevail; these mad
+anarchists, well organised as they were, and led by a most subtle brain,
+would be defeated very shortly.  Once the Heads were taken, the movement
+would suffer a speedy eclipse.
+
+But at times it seemed to her quick woman's ears that there was a false
+note in his cheerful tones, that he was not so certain of the ultimate
+result as he pretended to be.
+
+Moreno came to see her every day too.  She had conceived a strong liking
+for the black-browed young journalist.  Moreover, she had great faith in
+him.
+
+Guy, of course, was her king amongst men.  But she was not so hopelessly
+in love that she could not distinguish between the mental qualities of
+the two.  Guy was very intelligent; he could snatch at the hints of
+others, and shape his course of conduct on them.
+
+But Moreno had a subtle and penetrating intellect, a touch of genius.
+And he combined inspiration with prudence.
+
+If Guy talked cheerfully when he was with her, her fears and doubts
+revived on his departure.  Could he look all round and accurately weigh
+the chances?
+
+When Moreno told her to cheer up, and promised that all would be well,
+she felt fortified.  There was a sureness, a quiet power about the man
+that raised her drooping spirits.
+
+"You are sure that you will beat them, you are sure you will save Guy?"
+she had asked him one day, when he had paid her a brief visit.
+
+He spoke very deliberately.  "I have outwitted them once before."  He
+looked a little gloomy as he spoke.  It went to his kind heart to recall
+that on that occasion he had been compelled to sacrifice that charming
+young Frenchwoman, Valerie Delmonte.  "I shall outwit them again,
+believe me."
+
+His tone was very confident, Isobel thought.  "I am sure you will lay
+your plans very well, Mr Moreno, but there is many a slip between the
+cup and the lip."
+
+"The cup will be carried to the lip this time without a falter."  He
+spoke with his usual assurance.
+
+"Guy always speaks cheerfully too," said Isobel in her simple,
+straightforward way.  "But I am always doubtful when he leaves me."
+
+"Mr Rossett does not know what is in my mind, Miss Clandon.  And I dare
+not tell him, for reasons of my own.  An incautious confidence might
+utterly frustrate my plans.  I have many helping me, but I have close at
+hand a man who is going to be my ablest lieutenant.  Strange to say, you
+know that man well."
+
+Isobel lifted up to him startled eyes.  "You bewilder me.  I know so few
+people."
+
+"It will surprise you to know that your cousin, Maurice Farquhar, is in
+Madrid at the present moment and waiting to receive my instructions."
+
+"Maurice Farquhar in Madrid," she repeated.  "But why, but why?"
+
+"Because I wanted to have a clear-brained, resolute Englishman at my
+right hand when the supreme moment came.  I can't tell you everything.
+I daren't tell you much.  Would you like to see your cousin?  I can
+manage it easily."
+
+"Oh, I would love to," replied Isobel promptly, speaking according to
+the dictates of her open, generous nature.  Then she suddenly remembered
+that Guy had expressed a certain jealousy of her cousin.  "But perhaps
+at the moment it might not be prudent.  I am here _incognita_, in a
+rather difficult situation.  Later on, perhaps."
+
+From those few halting phrases Moreno guessed accurately enough what was
+passing in her mind.  She had a sincere affection, for her cousin, who
+came over here to assist her at the greatest personal inconvenience, but
+she would not see him, in case his visit might give offence to her
+lover.  It is ever thus that self-sacrifice in love is rewarded.
+
+"I quite understand," he said.  "Well, Farquhar is a white man, a man in
+a thousand.  I wrung a promise from him some time ago that he would come
+over here to help me to save Mr Rossett.  You can guess why he gave me
+that promise."
+
+"Yes," answered Isobel in a low voice.  "I can guess why he gave that
+promise.  He wanted to help me.  You cannot tell how mean I felt.  Oh, I
+think I will risk it.  Please ask him to come and see me."
+
+Moreno shook his head.  "No, better perhaps not to risk it.  Farquhar is
+content to do good by stealth.  We cannot be quite sure of the view the
+other gentleman might take of it, if it came to his ears."
+
+Isobel felt a frightful coward, but she was relieved by Moreno's words.
+Guy was very impetuous, and terribly jealous.  She could not afford to
+rouse his suspicions.  He left her feeling a little miserable and
+self-reproachful.  Why could not men take a broad-minded view of things?
+Even if a girl were engaged, it did not follow that she should not be
+allowed to have a faithful friend.
+
+She had grown very weary of Madrid.  She hated the place and the people,
+under these most unhappy circumstances.
+
+The good-natured Mrs Godwin had done her best to amuse her.  She had
+taken her to the Museo del Prado, and pointed out to her the
+masterpieces of Velazquez, Murillo, Ribera, and other great masters.
+She had conducted her down the animated plaza of the Puerta del Sol.
+She had shown her the view from the Campillo de las Vistillas.  They
+were too late for the Carnivals, and to a bull-fight Isobel would not
+go.
+
+Moreno betook himself to the quarters of Farquhar.  He found the
+self-contained young barrister stretched on a sofa, reading a French
+novel.
+
+Farquhar was already a bit tired of it.  On reflection, he was not quite
+certain if he had not been a little foolish in giving that promise.  He
+had rushed over to Spain to help a man whose only claim to consideration
+lay in the fact that he had taken away from him the woman he wanted for
+his wife.
+
+Then he thought of the charming Lady Mary, her warm praise and
+flattering words.  When he got back to England and recounted his
+exploits to her, he was sure he would receive a very warm welcome.
+Farquhar threw down his book, and lighted a cigar.  "Well, my good old
+friend, things seem devilish slow just now.  Is anything going to happen
+shortly?"
+
+Moreno nodded.  "Things will happen the evening after to-morrow.  Curb
+your impatience till then."
+
+"You have got it all cut and dried, then?"
+
+"I think so.  To-morrow morning I will take you to my excellent friend,
+the Chief of Police, and tell him that you represent me.  We will spend
+an hour or two afterwards in discussing our plans.  I have just come
+from Miss Clandon."
+
+"Ah," said Farquhar, with affected carelessness--that name had still
+power to thrill him in spite of Lady Mary.  "Did you find her quite
+well?"
+
+"Perfectly, so far as her health is concerned, but naturally full of
+doubts and fears.  I told her you were here; she was, of course, greatly
+surprised.  She expressed a wish to see you."  This, of course, was not
+the strict truth, but Moreno always wanted to make everybody feel happy
+and comfortable.
+
+A pleased expression stole over the man's face.  "Oh, she said that, did
+she?"
+
+Moreno did not answer the question directly.
+
+"I pointed out to her that, in my opinion, such a meeting might be
+extremely dangerous, and that it is essential you should lie very low."
+
+Farquhar accepted the glib explanation.  Moreno had one of the greatest
+qualities of a diplomatist, that he could impress nearly everybody with
+his sincerity.
+
+Next morning the two men interviewed the Chief of Police, or rather the
+Chief of Police, by appointment, interviewed them at the journalist's
+modest lodgings.  In the course of that interview many things were
+explained at length.
+
+Moreno, always cautious, always on the look out for accidents, stood by
+the window, keeping a vigilant eye on passers-by.  Farquhar and the
+Chief sat at the far end of the room.
+
+Suddenly he espied the tall form of Contraras nearing the house.  He
+bundled his guests into his bedroom.  "The old devil!  I had a suspicion
+he might turn up.  It is quite safe here.  If I give a loud whistle, get
+under the bed."
+
+But Contraras did not pay a long visit; he did not even sit down.  He
+had only strolled round to ascertain that things were going right.
+Moreno, resolutely avoiding details, assured him that everything was in
+train.  On the evening after to-morrow Guy Rossett would be delivered
+into the hands of the brotherhood, to be dealt with as they thought fit.
+
+Contraras left well pleased.  Moreno was certainly a great acquisition
+to the organisation.  When he was well out of sight the two men were
+brought out of the bedroom.
+
+The Chief of Police shook his fist vindictively in the direction of the
+vanished figure.
+
+"I was itching to take the old scoundrel straight away, Mr Moreno," he
+remarked.
+
+The journalist smiled.  "Impetuosity never pays, senor.  You could have
+proved nothing if you had.  A most respectable old gentleman, highly
+connected, through his wife, with some of the best families in the
+country, pays me a visit to inquire after my health, or perhaps to ask
+me to dinner at his hotel.  You would not have made much out of it."
+
+The Chief cooled down immediately under this sensible speech.  "You are
+a very wonderful man, Mr Moreno.  You never allow yourself to be
+carried away by your feelings."
+
+He turned with his gracious foreign manner to Farquhar.
+
+"I understand, sir, you are an old and trusted friend.  I have no doubt
+that you have the same faith in his judgment that I have."
+
+On the afternoon of that same day Moreno went to see Violet Hargrave.
+He found her restless and agitated.
+
+"You are sure that it will take place to-morrow night?" was her first
+question.
+
+"I am as near sure as can be.  Unless a miracle happens he will be
+brought up for judgment before the brotherhood," was the answer.
+
+Violet shuddered; her face went pale.  "I have never been at one of
+their so-called trials, but it must be very horrible."
+
+"Neither have I," said Moreno.  "I see, like myself, you don't
+anticipate much pleasure from it."
+
+"But you are going to save him, and I am going to help you," she cried a
+little wildly.  "You have not yet told me where I come in.  The time is
+very short; you will have to speak soon.  Why not speak now?"
+
+The young man hesitated for a few seconds.  How far should he trust her?
+Caution whispered not too far.
+
+He spoke in a gloomy tone.  "To tell you the truth, I am not so sure of
+saving him as I was.  Certain things have happened which I had not taken
+into my calculations."
+
+He was watching her narrowly as he spoke, to note the effect upon her of
+his words.  She clasped her hands together and her voice faltered.
+
+"I am so in the dark, you tell me nothing, you keep everything to
+yourself."  She betrayed great agitation, but it was evident she
+believed his statements implicitly.
+
+As a matter of fact, nothing had occurred to upset Moreno's plans in the
+slightest degree.  But there was something about which he had been a
+little careless.  He had pretty well secured his own safety, but he had
+not secured hers.
+
+"I cannot enter into a lot of explanations, when circumstances alter
+from hour to hour," he said rather brusquely.  "On the whole, I believe
+I have a better chance of saving him without your co-operation.  Now,
+please don't ask me why I think so!"
+
+"I won't, if you don't wish it," she answered submissively.  "I wish you
+could have been more frank with me, have given me some hint of what you
+intend to do.  It will be very terrible for me to be there, waiting on
+the turn of events."
+
+"You no longer desire revenge on Guy Rossett?" he asked, looking at her
+intently.
+
+"Not that sort of revenge," she answered truthfully.  "For I suppose
+murder is in their thoughts."
+
+"I had a brief talk with Contraras this morning; he came round to my
+rooms.  He was more frank than he usually is with his subordinates.  I
+suppose he was pleased with the way in which I have, so far, conducted
+the affair.  He thought there would be great difficulty in getting hold
+of Guy Rossett."
+
+"Will you tell me, some day, why you found it easy?"
+
+"Some day, perhaps; but not now.  To return to our chief, Contraras.  He
+explained to me that he has no desire to remove this particular man, if
+he will fall into line with him.  He frankly admits that he is too small
+game, that he would willingly avoid the odium that such a deed would
+bring on the brotherhood."
+
+"Ah!"  Violet was very interested now.  "If he falls in line with him.
+What does that mean?  Or perhaps," she added bitterly, "this is another
+secret that is to be hidden from me."
+
+"Not at all," was the quiet answer.  "I usually keep my own secrets, but
+I am not always so scrupulous with regard to the secrets of others.
+Contraras is going to offer him two alternatives.  The first is--that he
+resigns from the Embassy on some plausible pretext, and takes a solemn
+oath to do nothing to thwart the brotherhood.  The other alternative you
+can guess."
+
+"Death," whispered Violet in a hollow voice, and her face went as pale
+as death itself.
+
+"And you can guess what Rossett's answer will be?" said Moreno, breaking
+the long silence that ensued between them after those significant words.
+
+"I know, I know.  He will choose death unless you can save him."  The
+woman in her came suddenly to the surface, and she broke down, sobbing
+bitterly.
+
+Moreno looked at her steadily, but not unkindly, for a long time.  Her
+emotion was genuine enough, he was sure.  When the dastardly project had
+only been in the air, so to speak, she had not realised the full horror
+of it.  Now that it was so near to accomplishment, she was stricken with
+remorse for having harboured such revengeful thoughts.
+
+And presently he spoke again, in his quiet, deliberate accents.
+
+"By a miracle, it may be possible for me to save him, if I can outwit
+them."
+
+"But cannot I help you?  I know you do not believe much in the capacity
+of women, but I am not a fool, and in a crisis I believe my nerves are
+steady."
+
+"If it is fated for me to succeed, I shall work better alone.  But I
+would like to ask you this.  It will be a cruel ordeal for you to be
+present at this scene, especially at the moment when you will be called
+upon to record your vote as a member of the tribunal.  Would you be
+grateful to me if I could save you from that ordeal?"
+
+"Very, very grateful," sobbed the now sorely stricken woman.  "But it is
+impossible.  I have seen Contraras to-day also.  He has arranged for
+Alvedero to fetch me to-morrow evening, and to conduct me to that awful
+house where we are to receive Guy Rossett.  It is impossible."
+
+"There are very few things in this world that are impossible," said
+Moreno, a little impatiently.  "The first idea I had was that you would
+frankly throw yourself on the compassion of Contraras, tell him that
+this man was once your lover, and that you must be excused from taking
+part in the proceedings on the ground of common humanity.  The question
+is, would that work?  It might, because I know he is still remorseful
+about the fate of Valerie Delmonte.  But we are not sure.  He is a
+fanatic of the deepest dye."
+
+"Absolutely a fanatic," corroborated Mrs Hargrave.  "To him the welfare
+of the brotherhood is the one supreme thing.  All human emotions must be
+subjugated, all consideration of friends and kindred swept aside, in
+pursuance of the one object."
+
+"I am disposed to agree," said Moreno.  "Contraras' sense of compassion
+is a doubtful factor.  We will discard that idea.  Will you put yourself
+in my hands?"
+
+She looked intently into the dark, brilliant eyes, and what she read
+there reassured her.  He was stubbornly secretive, but he was kind and
+sympathetic.  He was ready to do his best to serve her.
+
+"Yes, I will," she said bravely.  "I trust you."
+
+"Good!  Then that is settled.  Alvedero will call for you to-morrow
+evening as arranged, but you will not accompany him.  He will come
+alone."
+
+"How are you going to do it?" she cried breathlessly.  Her admiration
+for the man had grown intensely during the last few days.  He seemed
+able to work miracles.
+
+"I shall keep that a secret too till to-morrow morning, when I shall be
+round at eleven o'clock.  If I told you now, you would not get a wink of
+sleep all night."
+
+"I shall not get a wink of sleep as it is," she answered.
+
+But, secretive to the last, Moreno was not to be tempted into frankness.
+"Oh, yes, you will.  Anyway, you have promised to leave yourself in my
+hands.  To-morrow morning, at eleven o'clock."
+
+They shook hands without another word.  Moreno walked back to his
+lodgings reflecting deeply.
+
+Was this attractive young woman really as bad as he had once thought?
+Was she not rather a creature of strong passions, of impulses at times
+ungovernable?  Were there not in her womanly feelings that could be
+cherished and fostered by sympathetic companionship?
+
+Anyway, if she followed his instructions, as she had agreed to do, he
+had secured her safety as well as his own.  And that would be a result
+that would gratify him exceedingly.
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
+
+Save for a little impatience when his judgment was impugned, or somebody
+questioned the soundness of his opinions, Moreno was a person of the
+most equable temperament, and singularly light hearted.
+
+Still, when he rose early on the morning of this most eventful day, he
+was in a very grave and thoughtful mood.  He was playing a most
+difficult and dangerous game.  Even if he outwitted the Heads of the
+brotherhood in Spain, as he believed he had, there were left Lucue and
+Jaques in London to deal with.
+
+To save Guy Rossett was easy enough; he had laid his plans very surely
+for that.  But he had to save himself; also to save Violet Hargrave.  In
+the plausible explanations that he would have to give in London, there
+must be no loopholes.
+
+Very early in the morning he again saw the Chief of Police, in company
+with Farquhar, who, now that the game was really afoot, was manifesting
+a keen interest in the chase.  They rehearsed the whole programme all
+over again.
+
+"He is cleverer than I thought him at first," whispered Moreno to his
+friend, when the somewhat stout man had withdrawn for a moment to
+consult one of his lieutenants.  "But I am relying on you to be
+constantly at his elbow.  You are not the sort of chap to get flurried."
+
+And Farquhar, although quite a modest kind of fellow, agreed that he
+could keep his head in a crisis.
+
+At eleven o'clock, as arranged, Moreno presented himself at the lodgings
+of Mrs Hargrave.  She looked very pale and there were dark rings round
+her eyes.  It was easy to see that her night had been a perturbed one,
+that she had enjoyed little or no sleep.
+
+"You don't look in the best of health and spirits," he said kindly.
+"Well, you have got to pluck up your courage.  You will want plenty of
+it for the next twenty-four hours."
+
+She shivered.  "If I had known what I was going in for, I would never
+have yielded to Jaques' entreaties," she said.
+
+"You never quite know what you will be landed in when you embark in
+these enterprises," answered the young man lightly.  "Well, now to
+business.  You still want to be absent from that meeting to-night?"
+
+"If it is possible."
+
+"It is quite possible, but you will have to rely on me, and you will
+also have to be very brave."
+
+He drew out of his pocket a small, dark-coloured phial, and held it to
+the light.
+
+"You see that?" he asked.  "Well, this is going to be your salvation."
+
+She shivered again; her nerves were very much out of order this morning,
+but she began to have an idea of what he was driving at.
+
+"This is the secret, then, that you would not tell me last night.  I
+have got to drink that."
+
+Moreno nodded.  "Yes, if you are still in the same mind as you were
+yesterday.  In my very early youth I was apprenticed to a chemist.  I
+very soon began to acquire a wide knowledge of drugs, and their
+properties."
+
+They had been standing up to the present.  Moreno pointed to a sofa.
+
+"We can talk more easily if we sit.  I have mixed you here a perfectly
+safe compound, which I want you to drink before I leave, so that I can
+take away the bottle; I would prefer it was not left lying about, you
+understand."
+
+She looked at him with eyes that expressed a great dread.  "What effect
+will it have?"
+
+"I tell you frankly, about six or seven o'clock you will feel very ill,
+very faint.  Those effects will last for the best part of twelve hours.
+A few hours after that, you will be yourself again."
+
+She looked at him narrowly.  A dark wave of suspicion had suddenly
+flowed over her mind.  She was sure, with a woman's certain intuition,
+that he was greatly attracted by her.  Still, she knew nothing of him.
+
+He had always said he was a true son of the Revolution, although she had
+somewhat distrusted the sincerity of that statement.  Had he, out of
+loyalty to the Cause, revealed her perfidy to the others, and was he
+deputed by them to poison her, under the specious pretext of falling in
+with her wishes?
+
+He read her dark, suspicious thoughts as easily as he would have read an
+open book.  He spoke very gently, very tenderly.  She had never appealed
+to him more than at this moment, with her pallid cheeks, the haunting
+dread in her eyes.
+
+"My dear, you do not trust me, I can see.  Your mind is full of doubt.
+Well,"--he stooped and kissed her--"I can only swear by everything I
+hold holy and sacred that I would not harm a hair of your head."
+
+No man could lie so convincingly as that.  She reached out her hand for
+the phial, then quickly drew it back.
+
+"I am afraid, dreadfully afraid," she murmured in a low voice.  "I don't
+know which to choose--to do as you tell me, or to go to that dreadful
+place."
+
+"You must do as you please."  He was still very patient, but she noticed
+there was certain coldness in his tones.
+
+She rose and walked about the room, wringing her hands.  Her faith in
+him had come back, but she was still terribly afraid.
+
+"It is early yet," said Moreno presently.  "You have plenty of time to
+send round for Contraras and throw yourself on his compassion.  Implore
+him not to compel you to assist at the condemnation, perhaps the
+execution, of a man who was once your lover.  He might give way."
+
+"The last thing he would do.  He would think it a grand opportunity to
+show my fidelity to the Cause.  He would let nothing stand in the way if
+it were his own case."
+
+"I agree with you now, as I agreed before when we discussed the same
+subject.  Well, you must make up your mind.  Take this, or wait here and
+come with Alvedero to-night."
+
+She was still wavering, torn between faith and doubt.  "But you said you
+could save Guy Rossett?  Is there any doubt of that?"
+
+And Moreno, out of his pity for the woman, out of the attraction she
+possessed for him, spoke more plainly than he had intended.
+
+"There is great doubt of it.  But even if I could save Guy Rossett, I
+doubt if I could save you.  I might just manage to save myself."
+
+And then, in a flash, she understood, and she doubted him no longer.
+
+"I think I see it all now.  You are no more a true son of the Cause than
+I am a true daughter.  I sold their secrets for money.  You would betray
+them for the same or other reasons."
+
+Moreno did not answer the question directly.  He simply held out the
+phial towards her.  "Will you drink this or not?"
+
+She took it from him with a hand that no longer trembled.  "Yes.  I
+believe you now.  I will drink it.  Tell me what I am to do, how I am to
+act when it begins to take effect!"
+
+"Do nothing; just go to the sofa and lie down.  In a few minutes you
+will be in a stupor, unconscious of everything and everybody.  Your
+landlady may come up; she can act as she pleases; send for a doctor or
+not.  Probably nobody will come near you till Alvedero arrives.  When he
+sees you there he can act as he pleases too.  Anyway, he cannot stay
+long, because he will be due at the brotherhood, to whom he will bring
+the report of your sudden indisposition."
+
+"And if the doctor comes, will he not guess?"
+
+"_Dios_!" cried Moreno, relapsing for a moment into Spanish.  "You will
+be all right again long before the doctor has picked out your complaint
+from a dozen others that present similar symptoms."  She pulled the cork
+from the phial, and sniffed the contents.  "There is no odour about it,"
+she said.
+
+"Not the slightest," said Moreno quietly.  "I took very good care of
+that.  I think if the doctor does come, he will be a bit puzzled."
+
+She drank it down at a draught, then handed the bottle back to her
+visitor.
+
+"I am an adventuress, and you are--well--a sort of adventurer," she
+said, with a half smile.  "Well, you see, I have given you a proof of my
+faith in you."
+
+Moreno put the phial into his pocket, and held out his hand.
+
+"Good-bye, for the present."
+
+"Shall I see you to-morrow?" asked Violet, as she walked with him to the
+door.  "You say after about twelve hours I shall be myself again."
+
+"Certainly," answered Moreno in his gayest tones.  Yes, whatever
+betided, he would certainly see her to-morrow.  Her trust in him had
+made her more attractive than ever.
+
+On the whole, he thought he had done the best for her.  Once he had
+thought of getting the Spanish police to arrest her on some false
+charge, with the view of letting her go as soon as all danger was past.
+But this method did not appeal to him very greatly.  The police would be
+glad enough to get her into their clutches, but they might not care to
+let her go so easily.  Too much explanation might be necessary, in the
+first instance.
+
+And he always had to adapt his policy to the view of what questions
+might be asked in London.  The tale she could tell now would be a very
+simple one.  She had been attacked in the evening by a sudden seizure,
+had relapsed into unconsciousness, and been oblivious of everything till
+the next day.
+
+That evening, at a few minutes past nine, Alvedero knocked at the door
+of the mean house.  When the landlady opened it, he perceived that she
+was in a great state of agitation.
+
+"Oh, senor, something terrible has happened.  I went up to madame's room
+some twenty minutes ago to take her her light supper.  She was lying
+unconscious on the sofa, and she has not stirred since."
+
+Alvedero bounded up the stairs, entered the room, and gazed on the
+motionless form.  At first he thought she was dead, but, on placing his
+hand on her heart, he could feel it beating.
+
+"She looks as if she were dying.  Have you sent for a doctor?"
+
+"Yes.  After I found that I could not pull her round, I sent my husband
+to fetch the first one he could find."
+
+Alvedero reflected as to his course of action.  Humanity suggested that
+he should stay by the side of the insensible woman till the doctor
+arrived and gave his opinion as to her condition.  But humanity was not
+a particular trait of the brotherhood, and Alvedero had less of it than
+most of his colleagues.  He had arrived five minutes late, he had spent
+another five minutes here.  If he left at once, he would still be
+keeping his colleagues waiting.
+
+Besides, what good could he do?  If the woman were not dying, as he
+believed she was, it must be hours before she recovered.  The tribunal
+must sit without her.  The sooner he went and informed them of that
+fact, the better.
+
+He turned towards the door, and spoke a few parting words to the
+landlady.
+
+"Don't leave her till the doctor comes.  Obey whatever instructions he
+gives promptly.  I will see that you are rewarded for your trouble.  I
+will look in again, in two or three hours from now.  Please sit up for
+me."
+
+He walked a few yards down the street, where a cab was waiting.  He
+entered it, and was driven rapidly towards an obscure portion of the
+town.
+
+Half an hour later, Isobel was sitting in the drawing-room alone.  Her
+host and hostess had gone on a visit to some friends who lived near.
+Guy had not been able to see her during the day, as he had been too
+busily engaged with his official duties.  He had sent round a note
+telling her he would be round in the evening.  She was expecting him
+every minute.
+
+There was a tap at the door.  The maid entered with a letter.  The
+gentleman who had brought it was waiting in the hall for an answer.
+
+She recognised the handwriting on the envelope at once as that of her
+cousin Maurice Farquhar.  She tore it open and read the few pencilled
+words: "I want to see you at once.  It is about Mr Rossett."  She
+rushed out into the hall, and almost pulled him into the room.
+
+"What is it?" she panted in terrified tones.  "Something has happened to
+Guy."
+
+"Yes, something has happened, but you must be brave and not give way.
+He has been trapped by the anarchists, but all will be well.  Moreno
+assures me that he has foreseen this, and will save him.  I am now on my
+way to do my share in the rescue."
+
+"Can I come with you?" pleaded Isobel.  "I shall go mad if I stop here."
+
+For a moment Farquhar hesitated.  He had a rooted dislike to women
+mixing themselves up in dangerous or turbulent scenes.  But her pleading
+eyes overcame his scruples.
+
+"Yes, if you wish.  I have a cab waiting.  Leave a note for these people
+here explaining your absence.  Then put on your things and come with me.
+I will explain everything as we go along."
+
+A few minutes later they were seated side by side, driving to the same
+obscure quarter of the town which had long ago been reached by the
+Spanish anarchist Alvedero.
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
+
+In a shabby room of a shabby house in one of the most obscure quarters
+of Madrid, five men were sitting.  They were Contraras, Zorrilta,
+Alvedero, Moreno, and Somoza, the fisherman of Fonterrabia.
+
+"Guy Rossett is here, in the next room."  It was Moreno who spoke.  He
+turned to the fisherman.  "Has he recovered sufficiently, Somoza?"
+
+The fisherman answered: "He was still a little bit dazed a minute ago
+when I left him.  The handkerchief I flung over his face contained a
+pretty strong dose.  I should give him another ten minutes before he is
+ready to face the tribunal."
+
+The capture had been easy.  Guy Rossett, reckless of danger, had left
+his flat to pay his visit to Isobel Clandon.  Two members of the Secret
+Police were ready to accompany him.  Fearful of compromising Isobel, he
+had rather roughly dispensed with their services.  Reluctantly, they had
+obeyed him.  They agreed between themselves that an Englishman was
+always pig-headed, a bit of a dare-devil, and inclined to take risks.
+
+Guy walked carelessly along.  He was in rather good spirits.  He had
+received that day a cheerful note from Moreno that everything was going
+well, that very soon the heads of the anarchist movement in Spain would
+be laid by the heels.
+
+Of course, in this letter, Moreno did not explain his methods.  If he
+had done so, Guy might not have been in quite such high spirits.
+
+For at this moment, playing his very difficult game of saving Guy
+Rossett, saving himself and Violet Hargrave, and also snaring the
+anarchists, Moreno could only give his full confidence to one man, his
+old friend and companion, Maurice Farquhar.
+
+As a matter of fact, Rossett never knew what had really taken place that
+night.  He was never told that Moreno knew of his projected visit to
+Isobel that evening, from a random remark of hers dropped in the
+afternoon--that he had set Somoza and another tall Biscayan fisherman to
+follow him, for the purpose of bringing him to the house where the heads
+of the anarchist movement were assembled in solemn conclave.
+
+Rossett walked gaily along.  He would have a precious hour with Isobel.
+In a dark street two men came up behind him.  One pinioned his arms from
+behind.  Somoza pressed a saturated handkerchief over his face.  In a
+few seconds the unfortunate young diplomatist was drugged and helpless.
+
+A cab, driven by a member of the brotherhood, had crawled slowly after
+the two men.  As soon as the driver saw what had happened, he drove
+rapidly up.  The two powerful men lifted the inert body into the
+vehicle.  He was partially recovered when they halted at the house where
+the tribunal of five was sitting to pronounce judgment on the man who
+had dared to thwart their plans.
+
+They locked him in a room adjoining that in which Contraras was
+presiding over the deliberations of his five trusted lieutenants.  After
+locking him in securely, Somoza went to report the matter to Moreno.
+His colleague, the other Biscayan fisherman, remained on guard outside
+the closed door, for fear of untoward accidents.  Rossett was a powerful
+man.
+
+Contraras, with his fine intellectual face, his hair in places turning
+from iron-grey to white, looked the embodiment of dignified justice.
+Perhaps, in his warped and fanatical mind, he believed he was.
+
+He spoke in his most judicial accents.  "Nobody shall ever say that he
+has not had a fair trial, when brought up before the tribunal of the
+brotherhood.  We will wait an hour, if it is necessary, for this
+misguided young man to recover his senses."  Moreno, who had arrived the
+last of the party, looked round with a sudden start.  "Where is our
+comrade, Violet Hargrave?"
+
+Contraras hastened to explain.  "Ah! of course you have not heard.
+Alvedero went to bring her here, according to arrangement.  He found her
+stretched on the sofa, motionless and inanimate.  He thinks she is in a
+dying condition.  He is going round to inquire after these proceedings
+are over."
+
+"This is very sad," said Moreno, in his gravest manner.  "And she is
+such a nice woman personally, and so devoted to the Cause, through the
+influence of Jaques.  I wonder,"--he cast an inquiring look at
+Alvedero--"if, by any chance, she drinks or drugs.  Many apparently nice
+women do!"  Alvedero shook his big head.  "I doubt it.  I should say a
+seizure of some sort.  Perhaps her heart is weak.  She looks a little
+fragile."
+
+Moreno, for obvious reasons, did not pursue the subject.  Violet
+Hargrave's absence had evidently excited no comment, no suspicion.
+
+A quarter of an hour had elapsed.  Somoza was deputed to enter the
+locked room and ascertain the condition of the prisoner.  Contraras was
+resolved to proceed justly, according to his interpretation of the word
+justice.
+
+Somoza returned after his inspection, and reported that the effects of
+the saturated handkerchief had worn off.  Guy Rossett was in a sense
+clothed in his right mind.  He was fit to face the tribunal.
+
+The members of the conclave assumed masks.  Somoza had worn a mask when
+he had entered the locked room.  Whatever happened, it was essential
+that Guy Rossett should not be able to identify any one of them.
+
+The prisoner, or captive, whatever he might be called, was brought in.
+In the cab he had been bound securely round the legs and wrists, but not
+painfully.  He was assisted to a chair by the masked Somoza, where he
+sat facing his judges.
+
+His face was a little pale, due to the effects of the chloroform, but
+his demeanour was firm.  He felt himself in a very tight corner, but he
+had been assured so often by Moreno that he need never despair.  A good
+angel, in the shape of Moreno himself, was watching over him.
+
+He cast his glance rapidly over the masked men confronting him.  Where
+was the black-browed young journalist whom he had known in old days?
+
+Yes, there on the right, nearest to the door.  Had that position been
+chosen by accident or design?  He recognised at once the short, squat
+figure.  Through the holes of the mask, he could see the gleam of those
+dark eyes.  His demeanour would be more indomitable than ever.
+
+Contraras opened the proceedings in his most judicial manner.
+
+"Mr Rossett, you will recognise that you are now at the mercy of the
+brotherhood, against whom for some time you have directed your
+activities."
+
+"Quite true," replied Guy Rossett in his curtest manner.  Whatever fate
+was in store for him, he was not going to knuckle under to this crew of
+bloodthirsty ruffians.
+
+Contraras continued in his calm, imperturbable manner.
+
+"I cannot say that, up to the present, you have done us very much harm,
+but still you are a menace to our schemes, our aspirations."
+
+"I am pleased to hear that I am of sufficient importance to justify this
+mock tribunal."  Rossett waved his hand contemptuously at the masked men
+sitting in judgment on him.
+
+The eyes of Contraras flashed through his mask.  He took his position
+very seriously.
+
+"Mr Rossett, let me advise you, in your own interests, not to carry
+matters with too high a hand.  Kindly recognise your position.  If you
+were seated in the Calle Fernando el Santo, I admit you would be top
+dog.  At the present moment the brotherhood, here in this obscure house,
+in this obscure quarter of the city of Madrid, is in that enviable
+situation."
+
+A bitter retort was on Rossett's lips, but he thought he perceived an
+almost imperceptible gesture of warning from the short, squat figure in
+the corner near the door.  He temporised.
+
+"The fortunes of war, I admit, are with you, sir.  I am sorry I have not
+the advantage of knowing whom I have the honour to address."
+
+Contraras was, at heart, a gentleman.  He felt the sting of the rebuke.
+
+"Mr Rossett, if you come into line with us to-night, I may deal with
+you quite frankly.  Before we separate, you may know as much about me as
+I do about you."
+
+There was an obvious movement on the part of Zorrilta and Alvedero.
+They evidently thought their chief was going too far.
+
+Contraras hushed the incipient rebellion with an authoritative wave of
+his hand.
+
+"Gentlemen, kindly leave me to deal with this matter.  Mr Rossett and I
+will understand each other in a very few moments."
+
+He turned towards the young diplomatist, still undaunted in the midst of
+this hostile crowd.
+
+"Mr Rossett, you have much to lose by opposing us--perhaps life itself.
+By withdrawing from this unequal contest--and, believe me, it is
+unequal--you have much to gain."
+
+"I am not so sure it is unequal," answered Guy Rossett stubbornly.  He
+had perceived too late the warning signal of Moreno, anxious that the
+somewhat uncertain Contraras should not be deflected from his present
+calm, judicial mood.
+
+But Contraras kept his temper.  "Mr Rossett, you are a young man, with
+life, a happy and prosperous life, before you.  I know a great deal
+about you; it is my business to know much about other people.  You are
+engaged to a very charming girl, you will inherit a great fortune from a
+wealthy aunt."
+
+"And, if you could establish your principles," broke in Guy, speaking
+with some heat, "you might take away from me my fiancee--you would
+certainly rob me of my fortune."
+
+But Contraras was still patient.  He was trying to reason with this
+obstinate young man, whose bold bearing moved his admiration.
+
+"We cannot tell how the great Revolution will shape itself ultimately.
+But let us deal with present facts.  A charming girl is waiting for you,
+longing for the moment when she can be your wife."
+
+A shadow of pain passed over Guy's face.  To-night, he had set out to
+visit his beloved Isobel, and he had been snared.
+
+Contraras watched him narrowly through the holes of his mask.
+
+"And a big fortune will be yours very shortly.  Are you prepared to give
+up these advantages for the sake of thwarting the brotherhood?"
+
+"I rather think I am.  But tell me what you propose.  I admit you are
+arguing in a most temperate fashion.  But you have something up your
+sleeve all the time."
+
+"I have," admitted Contraras frankly.  "Mr Rossett, believe me, I have
+no personal animosity against you, except as the tool of a decaying and
+effete system.  Come into line with me, and your bonds shall be loosed,
+and you shall go forth a free man."
+
+"Your conditions?" queried Rossett, in a hard voice.
+
+"Take your solemn oath, no, give me your word as an English gentleman--I
+will accept that--that you will resign your position at the Embassy, and
+take no further action against the brotherhood."
+
+He rose, and pointed at the door.  "Give me that promise, Mr Rossett,
+and you can walk out a free man."
+
+If Guy hesitated a moment, his hesitation must be pardoned.  In that
+swift instant he thought of Isobel, anxiously waiting his arrival, his
+dear sister Mary, anxious and troubled also, even his father, whose
+maladroit interference in his affairs had sent him into this hotbed of
+disaffection.
+
+Then he spoke slowly and deliberately.  "You invite me to dishonour
+myself, in order to secure my own personal safety.  My answer is, _No_.
+Do your worst."
+
+"You will not reconsider that decision, Mr Rossett?"
+
+Guy shook his head.  "No, a thousand times, no.  Do what you like with
+me.  I am a defenceless man.  You can murder me here, and probably hush
+up your crime.  But I shall be avenged--you can reckon on that."
+
+Contraras rose, and paced the room in great agitation.  He was a brave
+man himself; he admired the quality of bravery in others.  Fanatical and
+resolute as he was, it went against the grain to condemn this young
+Englishman to death, because he would not accept the dishonourable terms
+offered to him.
+
+"Mr Rossett, I wish to spare you.  The brotherhood does not condemn in
+haste."  He turned to Somoza.  "Take this gentleman to his room, and
+bring him here in a quarter of an hour.  Perhaps, by that time, he will
+take a more reasonable view of his position."
+
+"Come, senor, if you please," said the obedient Somoza, speaking through
+his mask in the most polite accents.  A Spaniard is always courteous,
+even if he is about to murder you.
+
+The fisherman bent down to assist his prisoner to rise, but before
+Rossett was firmly on his legs, the short, squat figure of Moreno got up
+from his chair.  He laid his finger to his lips and looked round at the
+assembly.
+
+"Silence, gentlemen, for a moment!  I am sure I heard the sound of a
+whistle.  Yes, there is another one.  Did you catch it?"
+
+No, nobody had caught it, except Moreno.  He stole gently to the window,
+and pulled the blind an inch aside.  He dropped it hastily, and
+staggered back in a state of extreme agitation.  In that apparently
+unconscious movement he had drawn nearer to the door.
+
+"_Dios_!" he cried, in a shrill voice.  "The house is surrounded.  There
+are dozens of men outside."
+
+The pulling aside of the blind was a signal he had arranged with his
+friend, the head of the Police.  The pretence of the whistle was a
+blind.
+
+There was a heavy trampling on the stairs.  Almost before he had ceased
+speaking, the locked door was burst open to admit the members of the
+police, with levelled revolvers covering the masked men.
+
+Two of the unwelcome visitors seized Somoza and handcuffed him.  A third
+cut the secure but not painful ropes that bound Rossett, and conducted
+him down the narrow staircase.
+
+A cab was waiting; his guardian bundled the young man in.
+
+Was it a dream?  Isobel's soft arms were round him, Isobel's soft voice
+was whispering to him.
+
+"My darling, you are safe.  Moreno has kept his promise."
+
+Rossett was bewildered.  No wonder!  He had hardly yet recovered from
+the effects of the drug which had been administered by Somoza.  His head
+fell back on her shoulder.
+
+"Isobel, my dear sweetheart!  You here!  What does it mean?"
+
+"It means that you are saved through Moreno, and my cousin Maurice
+Farquhar."  She felt it was no time to palter with the truth.
+
+"Your cousin, Maurice Farquhar!  What has he to do with it all?"
+
+She was pleased to note that there was no suspicion in his tones, only
+the expression of bewilderment.
+
+"Oh, it would take hours to explain, but I will cut it as short as I
+can.  My cousin and Moreno are great friends.  Maurice has come over
+here to help him.  I was expecting you to-night, as you will remember.
+Maurice came round to explain that you had been kidnapped.  He was
+coming on here, as Moreno's lieutenant, to help the police.  I implored
+him to take me along, to welcome you when you escaped from them.  He
+consented, and here I am."
+
+Guy clasped her in his arms.  "You darling!  And where is Mr Farquhar?
+I would like to thank him."
+
+Isobel beckoned to a man standing a little way in the shadow.  He
+advanced.
+
+"Maurice, Guy wishes to thank you for all your share in this night's
+work."
+
+The two men exchanged a cordial handshake.  Guy muttered his thanks.
+
+"I would like to tell you to drive off straight away," said Farquhar.
+"But you must wait a minute or two.  There will be a third occupant of
+this vehicle--our friend Moreno, who is going to pass the night at the
+house of the Chief of Police.  To-morrow he will go to England."
+
+In the room from which Rossett had been conducted to his friendly
+guardian, the head of the police was taking the situation in hand.
+
+"Masks off, if you please, gentlemen," he cried out in stentorian tones.
+
+The men turned hesitatingly to each other.  But the levelled revolvers
+had an eloquence that was very appealing.  They tore off their masks and
+flung them on the floor.
+
+The chief scrutinised them in turn, offering audible comments.
+
+"Ah, Contraras, the dark horse of the conspiracy, connected with the
+Spanish nobility through your wife.  I think I have met you at the
+Court.  Alvedero--ah, for some time you have been suspect.  Zorrilta, I
+know you well.  Governor of the Province of Navarre."
+
+He pointed to Somoza.  "This gentleman I do not know.  We shall find
+something about him later on."
+
+He turned to Moreno, who preserved an impassive demeanour.
+
+"I have not the honour of knowing this gentleman, either," he said with
+a splendid disregard of the truth, for which Moreno admired him
+immensely.  "But no doubt I shall shortly atone for my ignorance.  I
+shall have something to say to him later on."
+
+He turned to his subordinates.  "Handcuff them and take them along."
+
+Moreno all the time had been edging nearer to the door.  Suddenly he
+pulled out a knife, and hurled himself at the man who was guarding it.
+The man went down before the apparently savage onslaught.  Moreno rushed
+down the stairs.
+
+"After him," yelled the Chief.  "Don't let that man escape."
+
+Three of the waiting men clattered down the stairs after the flying
+Moreno.  They returned a few moments later, crestfallen.  They explained
+that he had flown like the wind, that they had lost him in the darkness.
+
+The Chief swore roundly, and cursed them.  "Dolts, idiots!" he cried
+fiercely.  "You have let him slip through your fingers.  I believe he is
+the most dangerous man of the lot."
+
+He was certainly playing his part splendidly.  It had, of course, all
+been rehearsed.  The man on whom Moreno had sprung had fallen down of
+his own accord.  The men who had been dispatched to pursue him had lost
+him on purpose.
+
+Farquhar met him at the door of the shabby house and piloted him to the
+cab in which Guy Rossett and Isobel were seated.
+
+"Here is the third passenger," he said.  Moreno got in and looked
+triumphantly at the two.  "Well, what do you think of the English Secret
+Service?" he cried in exultant tones.  "Mr Rossett is saved, I have
+escaped without suspicion, and my good friend the Chief of Police will
+make a splendid haul upstairs.  He played up splendidly.  Well, I think,
+after to-night the anarchist movement will have a big set-back in
+Spain."
+
+The cab drove along.  Isobel was deposited at the Godwins'.  Rossett was
+put down at his own flat.  Moreno was conveyed to the residence of the
+Chief of Police, where he was to pass the night.
+
+A telegram was awaiting Guy.  It was from his sister Mary.
+
+"I was summoned to Aunt Henrietta this morning.  She had passed away
+before I arrived."
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.
+
+The next morning Guy Rossett and Farquhar were admitted to a private
+audience of the King.  A gracious message had been transmitted to Moreno
+through the agency of the Chief of Police.  It would not have been very
+politic on the part of that enterprising young man to show himself at
+the Palace.
+
+His Majesty thanked them both warmly for their services, and was very
+interested in the details which they gave him of that eventful evening.
+
+"I know England well, and love it," he said.  "As long as she breeds
+such sons as you, she will always remain the first of great nations.
+Last night's work was good.  My poor country will have a more peaceful
+time now that we have laid these bloodthirsty scoundrels by the heels."
+
+Moreno's overpowering impulse was to get back to England as quickly as
+possible.  But there was a certain duty to perform first.  He must pay
+his promised visit to Violet Hargrave.
+
+He called about eleven o'clock.  He found her looking pale and languid
+from the effects of the powerful mixture he had given her.
+
+"Pulling round?" he inquired as they shook hands.  "I can see you are,
+but you won't be quite yourself for a few hours.  Well, tell me what
+happened.  I arrived late at the meeting, and simply heard from
+Contraras that Alvedero had reported you were indisposed.  But I learned
+no details, and, of course, did not press for any.  Did they fetch a
+doctor to you?  If so, what is his verdict?"
+
+A faint smile spread over her pale face.
+
+"He has only left a few minutes ago.  He came to the conclusion that I
+dosed myself with drugs.  I allowed him to believe that I did.  Of
+course, I have never drugged in my life."
+
+"A very clever man, an ornament to his profession," remarked Moreno
+drily.  "Still, how the devil should he guess, being totally ignorant of
+the circumstances?  And the symptoms were precisely those which would
+have been produced by a long course of drugging."
+
+Mrs Hargrave laid her hand upon his arm, and spoke in a serious voice.
+
+"What of last night?  There is nothing in the papers this morning.  I
+have sent out for half a dozen.  Tell me what happened."
+
+"The brotherhood has been defeated again."  He rehearsed the scene for
+her benefit, and came to the concluding portion.
+
+"Just as they were about to remove Rossett, I distinctly heard a low
+whistle, that was repeated a few seconds later.  I just pulled aside the
+curtain, and saw that the house was surrounded.  I had hardly put the
+blind back when the door was burst open and the police swarmed in.  They
+cut Rossett loose and took him downstairs.  They covered us with
+revolvers, and made us take off our masks.  The Chief who was with them
+recognised Contraras, Zorrilta, and Alvedero.  Myself and Somoza he did
+not recognise."
+
+"Ah!"  Violet Hargrave drew a long breath.  "You were the only one who
+escaped, then?  How did you manage it?"
+
+"By a miracle.  I always keep my head in a crisis.  As soon as I heard
+them rushing up the stairs, I drew near to the door, hoping to escape in
+the confusion.  It was, of course, a thousand to one chance.  While all
+the attention was being concentrated on Contraras and the others--of
+course the Chief didn't expect to bag such a big game--I drew my knife,
+plunged it into the breast of the man guarding the door--I fear I killed
+him, poor fellow--flew down the stairs, knocked over another chap, and
+dodged through them."
+
+Violet Hargrave surveyed him critically.  "I am afraid you haven't a
+very high opinion of my intelligence.  That is the story you will tell
+to Lucue, Maceda, and Jaques when we meet again in London.  It does not
+impose upon me.  You have escaped right enough, but you escaped with the
+connivance of the police."
+
+Moreno bit his lip; he had presumed a little too much upon feminine
+incredulity.
+
+"At any rate, you are not in their clutches," he said quietly.  "I saved
+you.  Don't forget that."
+
+She reached out her hand.  "Please forgive me.  I am very grateful for
+what you have done.  Of course, if I had gone there you could not have
+saved me.  I should have been taken with the others.  You could save Guy
+Rossett and yourself, even your clever brain could not have taken in a
+third.  I repeat, I am very grateful."
+
+Moreno retained her hand in his.  Secretive as he was by nature, he felt
+that the time for dissimulation was past.
+
+"When we get to London--I am leaving to-night, and the sooner we make
+tracks the better--we will respect each other's secrets.  I have still
+in my possession the photographed copy of that document which you sold
+to Guy Rossett."
+
+She drew away her hand from his with an indignant gesture.
+
+"Oh, you think I am utterly, irretrievably base!" she cried bitterly.
+"You think I would betray you, after what you have done for me, saved me
+from death or a life-long imprisonment."  She broke into wild sobbing.
+
+He put his arm round her, and drew her gently towards him, till her
+crying ceased.
+
+"My poor little Violet," he whispered gently.  "Let us speak together
+quite frankly.  You are, on your own showing, an adventuress, with, I
+believe, some very womanly instincts.  Well, I am not quite sure that I
+am very much better.  You sold the Cause for money.  I sold it for
+money, too, plus conviction.  I wonder if we could turn over a new leaf,
+lead a new life together?"
+
+"If I could find somebody who really cared for me," cried the pretty
+little blonde woman, still tearful.  "Jaques loves me, I am sure, but
+just with the love of a father."
+
+"Well, I care for you," said Moreno, and this time he spoke without any
+reservation.
+
+Violet lifted her face to his, and their lips met.  Then she shivered.
+
+"But how can we escape from this horrible brotherhood?  Lucue and Jaques
+are left.  They will exact their pound of flesh.  They will snare us
+into equally dangerous enterprises."
+
+Moreno snapped his fingers.  "Bah!  If I have outwitted Contraras and
+the others, I will soon settle Lucue's hash.  As to poor old Jaques, it
+won't take long to convince him that he is more safely employed in
+earning a hundred per cent, on his capital than in trying to blow up
+respectable people who have certainly never injured him.  The fate of
+the others will frighten him."
+
+Violet drew herself from his protecting arm, and dried her eyes.
+
+"I think, dear, I can really turn into a good woman," she said
+plaintively.  "You see, I have never had a proper chance.  When I
+married Jack, and I was genuinely fond of him, I thought I had met a
+gentleman.  Can you guess what he really was?"
+
+"A card-sharper?" suggested Moreno, with his uncanny facility of
+guessing conundrums.
+
+Mrs Hargrave nodded her blonde head.
+
+"You have hit it.  A week after we were married he told me all about
+himself.  We were to take an expensive flat in Mount Street, and he
+would bring people there.  He spent three weeks in teaching me an
+elaborate system of signalling.  As a rule, we played together, but he
+had another couple of confederates to ward off suspicion."
+
+"Did you tell Jaques of this?"
+
+"No, I was too ashamed.  Jaques is, of course, a rogue in his own way,
+but not that way.  He was opposed to the marriage at first, and I was
+keen on it.  I made out that Jack was a man of good family, and
+well-off.  I believed all he told me at the start.  I didn't want to own
+that I had been taken in."
+
+"I quite understand," replied Moreno.  "By the way, of course you didn't
+know that poor old Contraras is dead."
+
+"Contraras dead?  How did he die?"
+
+"It appears that he always carried some poisoned tablets in his pocket
+in case of accidents.  Before they handcuffed him--they are a bit slower
+here than in Paris or London--he swallowed one of them, and died as they
+took him downstairs.  Poor old man!  He was a terrible fanatic, but he
+was more honest than most of them.  I don't suppose there will be much
+mourning in Fitzjohn's Avenue.  I expect his family will be glad to have
+got rid of him."
+
+He kissed her very tenderly, as he bade her good-bye.
+
+"A new life, little woman, from to-day?"
+
+"A new life from to-day," she repeated softly, "as long as I am sure
+that you really care."
+
+"I do care," replied Moreno, speaking with unusual fervour for a man of
+his cautious temperament.
+
+Of the London section of the brotherhood little remains to be told.
+Shortly afterwards Lucue was stabbed to death in a violent quarrel with
+a brother anarchist.  Jaques and Maceda, alarmed at the fate of their
+Spanish colleagues, took but a perfunctory part in further propaganda.
+In twelve months' time the London section had ceased to exist as an
+active force.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+On a mellow October day, a few months after those thrilling events in
+Madrid, Isobel was married in the quiet little church on her uncle's
+estates.  It was in this church that her father had been christened.
+Her bridesmaids were Lady Mary and two cousins.  Her uncle, the head of
+the family, gave her away.
+
+For the Head of the Family and his wife had behaved quite properly on
+the occasion.  They had insisted that she should be married from their
+house, that she should have the whole-hearted support of her kindred.
+
+Such an arrangement suited her very well.  Her bereavement had been so
+recent that the idea of a fashionable wedding would have been repugnant
+to her.  Here in this quiet little church, where generations of Clandons
+had been christened, many of them married, she gave herself to the man
+of her choice.
+
+With the advent of his great-aunt's considerable fortune, Guy's brief
+fit of ambition died out.  And it must be admitted that, although he had
+stuck gallantly to his post, and refused to show the white feather, his
+experience of diplomatic life had been more exciting than pleasant.  So
+he severed his connection with the Foreign Office, having made up his
+mind to lead the easy and agreeable life of a man of wealth and
+position.
+
+They were to spend their honeymoon in Italy.  On their return, they
+would renovate Aunt Henrietta's charming country residence in Hampshire
+and take a house in London, where they intended to spend a good deal of
+their time.
+
+For Guy was very proud of his beautiful Isobel, and he could see a time
+when she would become a very charming and popular hostess.
+
+The young couple drove away amidst the cordial greetings of the small
+company assembled.  Only a few intimate connections of the two families
+were present.
+
+Moreno had been invited, but he had excused himself on some plausible
+pretext.  He had no desire to thrust himself into an aristocratic
+_milieu_, to which he was unaccustomed.  He sent the bride a very
+handsome present, with a card on which was written: "From Andres Moreno,
+as a souvenir of thrilling times in Spain."
+
+While Lord Saxham was saying good-bye to the Clandons, Maurice Farquhar
+conducted Lady Mary to the car which was to drive them back to Ticehurst
+Park, a distance of about fifty miles.
+
+"You will not forget that you are due to us on the twenty-fifth," she
+reminded him as they shook hands.
+
+"Is it likely?  I have been looking forward to it ever since you sent me
+the invitation."
+
+"I am looking forward to it, too," said Mary softly, and a rather
+becoming colour swept over her cheek, making her look quite attractive.
+
+The Earl joined them and mounted the car.  He waved his hand cheerfully
+as they drove off.  "Not good-bye, but _au revoir_, Farquhar.  See you
+on the twenty-fifth."
+
+He watched the car drive out of sight, thinking of many things.  He had
+loved Isobel with all the fervour of first love, but Isobel was gone
+from him.  And Mary was very sweet and attractive, and took no pains to
+conceal that she took great pleasure in his society.  Well--perhaps some
+day!
+
+But even in his secret thought the young and ambitious barrister could
+hardly bring himself to believe that a girl of Mary's birth and long
+descent would give herself to a man who had only his brains to recommend
+him.
+
+Still, this younger generation of the Rossetts had a strange democratic
+strain in them.  Guy had chosen his bride from the small squirearchy.
+It was openly rumoured in the clubs that, having come into a snug little
+income from great-aunt Henrietta, Lord Ticehurst had made up his mind to
+marry his chorus-girl, and defy his father.
+
+Lady Mary had also been well provided for from the same kind source.
+She might prove as democratic as the others.
+
+And, while Farquhar was ruminating over all these things, Isobel and her
+husband had set out on the first stage of their journey to the enchanted
+land of wedded romance.
+
+The End.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Whither Thou Goest, by William Le Queux
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41184 ***