ccusation I
bring against Ferruci."

"And, again," continued Denzil, hardly listening to what she was saying,
"when I mentioned my suspicion about the stiletto in the hearing of Mrs.
Vrain, she fainted."

"Which showed that her guilty conscience pricked her. Oh, I am sure of
it, Mr. Denzil! My stepmother and the count are the criminals!"

"Our evidence, as yet, is only circumstantial," said Lucian cautiously.
"We must not jump to conclusions. At present I am completely in the dark
regarding this foreigner."

"I can enlighten you, but it is a long story."

"The longer the better," said Denzil, thinking he could hear Diana speak
and watch her face for hours without weariness. "I wish for all details,
then I shall be in a better position to judge."

"What you say is only reasonable, Mr. Denzil. I shall tell you my
father's history from the time he went to Italy some three years ago. It
was in Italy--to be precise, in Florence--that he met with Lydia Clyne
and her father."

"One moment," said Denzil. "Before you begin, will you tell me what you
think of the couple?"

"Think!" cried Diana disdainfully. "I think they are a couple of
adventurers; but she is the worst of the two. The old man, Jabez Clyne,
I think moderately well of; he is a weak fool under the thumb of his
daughter. If you only knew what I have suffered at the hands of that
golden-haired doll!"

"I should think you could hold your own, Miss Vrain."

"Not against treachery and lies!" retorted Diana fiercely. "It is not my
habit to employ such weapons, but my stepmother used no others. It was
she who drove me out of the house and made me exile myself to the
Antipodes to escape her falseness. And it was she," added Miss Vrain
solemnly, "who treated my father so ill as to drive him out of his own
home. Lydia Vrain is not the doll you think her to be; she is a false,
cruel, clever adventuress, and I hate her--I hate her with all my heart
and soul!"

This feminine outburst of anger rather bewildered Denzil, who saw very
plainly that Diana was by no means the lofty angel he had taken her to
be in the first appreciation of her beauty. But her passion of the
moment suited so well with her stately looks that she seemed rather a
Margaret of Anjou defying York and his faction than an injured woman
concerned with so slight a thing as the rebuke of one of her own sex for
whom she had little love. Diana saw the surprise expressed on Lucian's
face, and her own f