The Betrayal Part 16

"By-the-bye," he remarked presently, "you, too, my young friend, were out early this morning."

"I was writing all night," I answered. "I had doc.u.ments to put in the safe."

He shot a quick searching glance at me.

"You have been to the safe this morning, then?"

I answered him with a composure at which I inwardly marvelled.

"Certainly! It was the object of my coming here."

"You entered the room with the Duke. Was he in the study at that hour?"

"No, I went upstairs to him. I had a question to ask."

"And you have met Lord Blenavon? What do you think of him?"

"We were at Magdalen together for a term," I answered. "He was good enough to remember me."

Ray smiled, but he did not speak another word to me all the breakfast-time. Once I made a remark to him, and his reply was curt, almost rude. I left the room a few minutes afterwards, and came face to face in the hall with Lady Angela.

"I am glad, Mr. Ducaine," she remarked, "that your early morning labours have given you an appet.i.te. You have been in to breakfast, have you not?"

"Your father was good enough to insist upon it," I answered.

"You have seen him already this morning, then?"

"For a few minutes only," I explained. "I went up to his room."

"I trust so far that everything is going on satisfactorily?" she inquired, raising her eyes to mine.

I did not answer her at once. I was engaged in marvelling at the wonderful pallor of her cheeks.

"So far as I am concerned, I think so," I said. "Forgive me, Lady Angela," I added, "but I think that you must have walked too far this morning. You are very pale."

"I am tired," she admitted.

There was a lounge close at hand. She moved slowly towards it, and sat down. There was no spoken invitation, but I understood that I was permitted to remain with her.

"Do you know," she said, looking round to make sure that we were alone, "I dread these meetings of the Council. I have always the feeling that something terrible will happen. I knew Lord Ronald very well, and his mother was one of my dearest friends. I am sure that he was perfectly innocent. And to-day he is in a madhouse. They say that he will never recover."

I did not wish to speak about these things, even with Lady Angela. I tried to lead the conversation into other channels, but she absolutely ignored my attempt.

"There is something about it all so grimly mysterious," she said. "It seems almost as though there must be a traitor, if not in the Council itself, in some special and privileged position."

She looked up at me as though asking for confirmation of her views. I shook my head.

"Lady Angela," I said, "would you mind if I abstained from expressing any opinion at all? It is a subject which I feel it is scarcely right for me to discuss."

She looked at me with wide-open eyes, a dash of insolence mingled with her surprise. I do not know what she was about to say, for at that moment the young man with the sombre shooting suit and closely cropped hair paused for a moment on his way out of the breakfast-room.

He glanced at me, and I received a brief impression of an unwholesome-looking person with protuberant eyeb.a.l.l.s, thin lashes, and supercilious mouth.

"I trust that the day's entertainment will include something more than a glimpse of Lady Angela," he said, with a low bow.

She raised her eyes. It seemed to me, who was watching her closely, that she shrank a little back in her seat. I was sure that she shared my instinctive dislike of the man.

"I think not," she said. "Perhaps you are expecting me to come down with the lunch and compliment you all upon your prowess."

"It would be delightful!" he murmured.

She shook her head.

"There are too many of you, and I am too few," she said lightly.

"Besides, shooting is one of the few sports with which I have no sympathy at all. I shall try and get somewhere away from the sound of your guns."

"I myself," he said, "am not what you call a devotee of the sport. I wonder if part of the day one might play truant. Would Lady Angela take pity upon an unentertained guest?"

"I should find it a shocking nuisance," she said, coolly. "Besides, it would not be allowed. You will find that when my father has once marshalled you, escape is a thing not to be dreamed of. Every one says that he is a perfect martinet where a day's shooting is concerned."

He smiled enigmatically. "We shall see," he remarked, as he turned away. Lady Angela watched him disappear. "Do you know who that is?"

she asked me. I shook my head. "Some one French, very French," I remarked. "He should be," she remarked. "That is Prince Henri de Malors. He represents the hopes of the Royalists in France."

"It is very interesting," I murmured. "May I ask is he an old family friend?"

"Our families have been connected by marriage," she answered. "He and Blenavon saw a great deal of one another in Paris, very much to the disadvantage of my brother, I should think. I believe that there was some trouble at the Foreign Office about it."

"It is very interesting," I repeated.

"Blenavon was very foolish," she declared. "It was obviously a most indiscreet friendship for him, and Paris was his first appointment. But I must go and speak to some of these people."

She rose and left me a little abruptly. I escaped by one of the side entrances, and hurried back to my cottage.

CHAPTER XII

AN ACCIDENT

The Prince accepted my most comfortable easy chair with an air of graceful condescension. Lady Angela had already seated herself. It was late in the afternoon, and Grooton was busy in the room behind, preparing my tea.

"The Prince did not care to shoot to-day," Lady Angela explained, "and I have been showing him the neighbourhood. Incidentally, I am dying for some tea, and the Prince has smoked all his cigarettes."

The Prince raised his hand in polite expostulation, but he accepted a cigarette with a little sigh of relief.

"You have found a very lonely spot for your dwelling-house, Mr.

Ducaine," he said. "You English are so fond of solitude."

"It suits me very well," I answered, "for just now I have a great deal of work to do. I am safely away from all distractions here."