e parasitical creatures
who live by sucking the honesty out of simpler persons. You are here
because the more private meetings of the English Council of Defence are
being held at Rowchester. It is your object by bribery, or theft, or
robbery, or the seductive use of those wonderful charms of yours, to
gain possession of copies of any particulars whatever about the English
autumn manoeuvres, which, curiously enough, have been arranged as a sort
of addendum to those on your side of the Channel. You have an ally, I
regret to say, in the Duke's son, you are seeking to gain for yourself a
far more valuable one in the person of this boy. You say to yourself,
no doubt, Like father, like son. You ruined and disgraced the one. You
think, perhaps, the other will be as easy."

"Stop!" she cried.

He looked at her curiously. Her face was drawn with pain. In her eyes
was the look of a being stricken to death.

"It is terrible!" she murmured, "that men so coarse and brutal as you
should have the gift of speech. I do not wish to ask for any mercy from
you, but if I am to stay here and listen, you will speak only of facts."

He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.

"You should be hardened by this time," he said, "but I forgot that we
had an audience. It is always worth while to play a little to the
gallery, isn't it? Well, facts, then. The boy is warned against you,
and from to-day this house is watched by picked detectives. Blenavon
can avail you nothing, for he knows nothing. Such clumsy schemes as
last night's are foredoomed to failure, and will only get you into
trouble. You will waste your time here. Take my advice, and go!"

She rose to her feet. Smaller and frailer than ever she seemed, as she
stood before Ray, dark and massive.

"Your story is plausible," she said coldly. "It may even be true. But,
apart from that, I had another and a greater reason for coming to
England, for coming to Braster. I came to seek my husband--the father
of this boy. I am even now in search of him."

I held my breath and gazed at Ray. For the moment it seemed as though
the tables were turned. No signs of emotion were present in his face,
but he seemed to have no words. He simply looked at her.

"He left me in January," she continued, "determined at least to have
speech with his son. He heard then for the first time of the absconding
trustee. He came to England, if not to implore his son's forgiveness,
at least to place him above want. And