id, "Now your news;" and she held her hand
lightly to her heart to await the blow.

"The King married this morning the Princess Clementina," said Wogan.
Lady Featherstone did not move her hand; she still waited. It was just
to hinder this marriage that she had come to Italy, but her failure was
at this moment of no account. She heard of it with indifference; it had
no meaning to her. She waited. Wogan's mere presence at the villa told
her there was more to come. He continued:--

"Last night Mr. Whittington came with the King to Bologna--you
understand, no doubt, why;" and she nodded without moving her eyes from
his face. She made no pretence as to the part she had played in the
affair. All the world might know it. That was a matter at this moment of
complete indifference. She waited.

"The King and Mr. Whittington came at nine of the night to the little
house which you once occupied. I was there, but I was not there alone.
Can your Ladyship conjecture whom I brought there? Your Ladyship, as I
learned last night from Mr. Whittington's own lips, had paid a visit
secretly, using a key which you had retained to the house on an excuse
that you had left behind jewels of some value. You saw her Highness the
Princess. You told her a story of the King and Mlle. de Caprara. I rode
to Rome, and when the King came last night Mlle. de Caprara was with the
Princess. I had evidence against Mr. Whittington, a confession of one of
the soldiers of the Governor of Trent, the leader of a party of five who
attacked me at Peri. No doubt you know of that little matter too;" and
again Lady Featherstone nodded.

"Thus your double plot--to set the King against the Princess, and the
Princess against the King--doubly failed."

"Go on," said Lady Featherstone, moistening her dry lips. Wogan told her
how from the little sitting-room on the ground-floor he had seen the
King and Whittington cross the lawn; he described his interview with
the King, and how he had come quietly down the stairs.

"I went into the garden," he went on, "and touched Whittington on the
elbow. I told him just what I have explained to you. I said, 'You are a
coward, a liar, a slanderer of women,' and I beat him on the mouth."

Lady Featherstone uttered a cry and drew herself into an extraordinary
crouching attitude, with her eyes blazing steadily at him. He thought
she meant to spring at him; he looked at that hand upon her heart to see
whether it held a weapon hidden in