il the count returns and learns the dreadful truth,
everything, so far as my influence can go, is over between you and
Violet."

"What is the dreadful truth?" I asked. "I give you my word that I am
utterly in the dark."

Now Lady Rollinson was a dear old woman, and I had had a warm affection
for her. On her side she had treated me from the beginning of our
acquaintance almost as if I had been her son; and hitherto there had
been nothing but the most friendly and affectionate sentiment between
us. But I began to get angry, and I dare say I spoke in a tone to which
she had been little accustomed. She cast an indignant glance at me, and
fanned herself at a great rate for a full minute before she answered.

"Come," I repeated more than once; "what is this dreadful truth? Surely
I have a right to know it."

"You _shall_ know it, Captain Fyffe," she answered, in a voice of
weeping menace such as women use when they are both wounded and angry;
"you shall have it in a word." She dropped her fan upon her knees, and
asked me, with a lugubrious air of triumph and reproach, "Did you ever
hear of Constance Pleyel?"

I was standing before her, and as she leaned forward suddenly to offer
this surprising question I stepped back a little. A chair caught me at
the back of the knees, and I dropped into it as if I had been shot. I
have laughed in memory many a time over that ludicrous accident, but it
was no laughing matter at the moment, for it sent a conviction to the
old lady's mind which I do not think was altogether banished from it to
her dying day. Of course the question in such a connection came upon
me as a surprise. In all my searchings for the cause of her ladyship's
distemper I had not lighted on the thought of Constance Pleyel. I was
not so much amazed at it that the name alone could have bowled me
over in that way; but Lady Rollinson's idea was that it had gone home
instantly to a guilty conscience.

"That is enough," she said, "and more than enough." With these words she
arose and walked towards the door, but I intercepted her.

"I beg your pardon, it is not enough, or nearly enough."

"You know the name," she answered. "You have shown me enough to tell me
that."

"I know the name, certainly," I replied. "I have known the name and the
person that owns the name for many years. But that fact affords a very
partial explanation of your conduct. I must trouble you to sit down,
Lady Rollinson, and listen to what I have