as when I found that she, in whom I reposed the utmost confidence,
had played her own father false, and might have ruined him!"

"Yes," remarked the other sympathetically, "it was a great blow to you,
I know. But will you not forgive mademoiselle?"

"Forgive her!" he cried fiercely, "forgive her! Never!"

The grey-bearded Frenchman, who had always been a great favourite with
Gabrielle, sighed slightly, and gave his shoulders a shrug of regret.

"Why do you ask that?" inquired Sir Henry, "when she herself admitted
that she had been at the safe?"

"Because----" and the other hesitated. "Well, for several reasons. The
story of your quarrel with mademoiselle has leaked out."

"The Whispers--eh, Goslin?" laughed the old man in defiance. "Let the
people believe what they will. My daughter shall never return to
Glencardine--never!"

As he had been speaking the door had opened, and James Flockart stood
upon the threshold. He had overheard the blind man's words, and as he
came forward he smiled, more in satisfaction than in greeting.

CHAPTER XXIX

CONTAINS A FURTHER MYSTERY

"My dear Edgar, when I met you in the Devonshire Club last night I could
scarcely believe my own eyes. Fancy you turning up again!"

"Yes, strange, isn't it, how two men may drift apart for years, and then
suddenly meet in a club, as we have done, Murie?"

"Being with those fellows who were anxious to go along and see the show
at the Empire last night, I had no opportunity of having a chat with
you, my dear old chap. That's why I asked you to look in."

The two men were seated in Walter's dingy chambers on the second floor
in Fig-Tree Court, Temple. The room was an old and rather frowsy one,
with shabby leather furniture from which the stuffing protruded,
panelled walls, a carpet almost threadbare, and a formidable array of
calf-bound volumes in the cases lining one wall. The place was heavy
with tobacco-smoke as the pair, reclining in easy-chairs, were in the
full enjoyment of very excellent cigars.

Walter's visitor was a tall, dark man, some six or seven years his
senior, a rather spare, lantern-jawed young fellow, whose dark-grey
clothes were of unmistakable foreign cut; and whose moustache was
carefully trained to an upward trend. No second glance was required to
decide that Edgar Hamilton was a person who, having lived a long time on
the Continent, had acquired the cosmopolitan manner both in gesture and
in dress.

"Well," excla