announcement had produced
such a curious effect. And he recognized as he looked at them that,
while they were both frightened, they were frightened in different
ways. Miss Baylis had already recovered her composure; she now sat
sombre and stern as ever, returning Spargo's look with something of
indifferent defiance; he thought he could see that in her mind a
certain fear was battling with a certain amount of wonder that he had
discovered the secret. It seemed to him that so far as she was
concerned the secret had come to an end; it was as if she said in so
many words that now the secret was out he might do his worst.

But upon Mr. Septimus Elphick the effect was very different. He was
still trembling from excitement; he groaned as he sank into his chair
and the hand with which he poured out a glass of spirits shook; the
glass rattled against his teeth when he raised it to his lips. The
half-contemptuous fashion of his reception of Spargo had now wholly
disappeared; he was a man who had received a shock, and a bad one. And
Spargo, watching him keenly, said to himself: This man knows a great
deal more than, a great deal beyond, the mere fact that Marbury was
Maitland, and that Ronald Breton is in reality Maitland's son; he knows
something which he never wanted anybody to know, which he firmly
believed it impossible anybody ever could know. It was as if he had
buried something deep, deep down in the lowest depths, and was as
astounded as he was frightened to find that it had been at last flung
up to the broad light of day.

"I shall wait," suddenly said Spargo, "until you are composed, Mr.
Elphick. I have no wish to distress you. But I see, of course, that the
truths which I have told you are of a sort that cause you
considerable--shall we say fear?"

Elphick took another stiff pull at his liquor. His hand had grown
steadier, and the colour was coming back to his face.

"If you will let me explain," he said. "If you will hear what was done
for the boy's sake--eh?"

"That," answered Spargo, "is precisely what I wish. I can tell you
this--I am the last man in the world to wish harm of any sort to Mr.
Breton."

Miss Baylis relieved her feelings with a scornful sniff. "He says
that!" she exclaimed, addressing the ceiling. "He says that, knowing
that he means to tell the world in his rag of a paper that Ronald
Breton, on whom every care has been lavished, is the son of a
scoundrel, an ex-convict, a----"

Elphick lift