"Well," he said, "as you are aware, I am your father's friend, and have been so through many years. Recently there was a--well, a crisis, which was averted in a very unexpected and mysterious manner."

"I know," she remarked, turning rather pale. She wore turquoise blue that night, a beautiful gown of Paquin's which suited her admirably.

"My father has told me everything. You made every effort to wreck the Socialist conspiracy--and you were fortunately successful. I return you my very warmest thanks. You saved my father."

"No; you are quite mistaken. I did not. The questions were abandoned for some mysterious motive which I am still endeavouring to discover.

It is in pursuance of my inquiries that I am now approaching you. Do you follow me?"

"Perfectly."

"As far as I can gather, your father's enemies have only postponed their blow. It may fall at any time, therefore we must be prepared for it.

Montebruno received orders in secret to postpone his attack, and there must have been a reason for this. Perhaps the time was not yet ripe-- perhaps the Socialists feared a retaliation which might crush them. In any case, we must get at the truth, and thus be forearmed."

"And how can I a.s.sist you?" she asked, knowing the bitter truth of her self-sacrifice, but determined to keep her secret to herself.

"By being frank with me."

"Well?"

"You are to marry Jules Dubard?"

"Yes."

"At your father's instigation?"

She was silent, and her cheeks turned slightly paler. Their long acquaintance gave him the right to put such a question to her, yet within her heart she resented it. Why should this secret agent, this man who was an adventurer, although so useful in her father's service, seek to learn the truth?

"My father gave his consent to our marriage," she replied simply.

"I know that. He has already told me so. I speak plainly, and say that I am desiring to get at the truth."

"The truth of what? I don't understand you."

"The truth regarding certain circ.u.mstances which are exceedingly curious. I have been for three months in active pursuit of knowledge, and in my inquiries have discovered some very strange things. Remember, I am working in the interests of your father, and anything you may say to me is in strict confidence. We have known each other for a long time, Miss Mary," he added--"indeed, ever since you wore short frocks and used to flirt with me in the salon at San Donato. Do you recollect it?"

She laughed as a slight blush suffused her cheeks at recollection of her girlhood days before she went to school at Broadstairs. She recollected how in those youthful days she had admired Vito Ricci, the well-dressed, debonair deputy who was her father's closest friend.

"I remember," she admitted, laughing.

"Then let us speak in confidence," he went on, deeply in earnest. "You were acquainted with Felice Solaro, captain in the 6th Alpine Regiment, who fell in love with you?"

She nodded, with eyes open in surprise.

"He declared his love, and you refused him. Your father, who suspected that the young captain had had the audacity to court you, was furious, and forbade you to receive him. But you saw him in secret one day to bid him farewell as he was ordered to a garrison on the French frontier.

Your father being absent, you received him, at his own suggestion, in the library of the palace in Rome. While you were talking with him you heard some visitors approaching, and you rushed out, locking him in the library, pretending that your father had taken the key. He remained there in secret for over two hours, until you could escape from the callers, release him, and let him out in secret. Is that so?"

She blushed to the roots of her hair at recollection of that youthful escapade, and admitted that all he had alleged was the truth.

"And that man is now in prison, charged with having sold military secrets to France--a copy of a confidential doc.u.ment which was in a drawer in your father's writing-table."

She stood staring at him, utterly speechless.

"But that is not the charge against him," she hastened to declare. "He is believed to have sold the plans of the Tresenta fortress."

"That is so, but there is also the graver charge--the copying of that doc.u.ment which was in your father's keeping, and one of the most secret and important concerning our army."

"But he is innocent?" she exclaimed. "I know he is innocent, Signor Ricci. He is the victim of a woman named Nodari, at Bologna, who gave perjured evidence against him."

"I know the whole facts. I have read the depositions given at the secret court-martial, but I have no means of judging whether he is innocent or guilty. One fact, however, I desire to learn, and it is this. Has the count ever mentioned to you the captain's name, or has he ever admitted acquaintance with him?"

"Never to my knowledge," was her frank answer. "Felice Solaro once declared his love for me, and therefore, in order not to arouse the count's jealousy, I have never referred to him."

"Naturally. But the fact is all the more curious that the allegation of Solaro's sale of the copy of the secret doc.u.ment to France--the copy of that obtained from your father's writing-table--was actually made by the count."

"By the count?" she cried. "Then it was actually upon his evidence that poor Felice has been degraded and condemned?"

"Exactly. But the motive is utterly incomprehensible, for it would really seem as though the captain was actually guilty of the treasonable offence."

Mary was silent as they paced down the long, deserted corridor. Then at last she turned slowly to her companion, and in a strange, hoa.r.s.e voice said--

"Yes, it is incomprehensible why an innocent man should be made to suffer, unless--unless my father and the count have acted in accord to secure poor Felice's ruin and disgrace."

"But why?"

No words escaped her. She only shrugged her white shoulders. Yet the man at her side saw in her fine dark eyes the light of unshed tears.

But even he did not suspect the truth.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

"WAS SAZARAC YOUR FRIEND?"

It was a bright morning in Rome.

"You will recollect, Miss Mary, that when I congratulated you at Orton upon your engagement to Dubard, you declared that you had no thought of any such thing," exclaimed George Macbean, with a smile. "I suppose I may now be permitted to repeat my congratulations?"

"If you wish," was the girl's mechanical reply. "And I thank you very much," she added, her face quite serious.

They were standing together one morning in one of the smaller reception-rooms of her father's palace. He had called on the Minister on official business, and they had met quite accidentally in the great mediaeval courtyard, where the plashing of the old marble fountain broke the quiet, playing on as it had done for nearly four hundred years; that courtyard that was so full of stirring memories of the long past ages, and the stones of which had echoed to the tramp of the armed retainers of the great prince whose ancestral home it once was.

Since his arrival in Rome two months ago fortune had certainly smiled upon George Macbean General Borselli had given him a lucrative appointment in the Ministry at a salary which enabled him to rent a comfortable little bachelor apartment in the Via Sistina. The work was very different from the drudgery from Morgan-Mason's correspondence, and he had quickly found that his position at once gave him the _entree_ to the official society of the Italian capital. The Under-Secretary was kindness itself, and he soon found that his office was one of those sinecures with fat emoluments which are found more or less in every Government department.

For three weeks or so after his arrival he had no occasion to meet His Excellency the Minister, but when he one day entered Morini's private cabinet, he took the opportunity of thanking him for the appointment.

The Minister thereupon, as though suddenly recollecting their previous acquaintanceship, made a number of inquiries as to what office he was filling in the Ministry and the nature of his work, the outcome of which was that within six weeks of his arrival in the Eternal City he found himself appointed private secretary to the Minister himself.

This displeased Borselli, he thought; for when he informed him of the Minister's order, he remained silent and his sallow face a.s.sumed an expression of distinct disapproval. The general had not expected that Morini would take the young man into his service, or he would probably have hesitated to call him from London. Nevertheless, the Under-Secretary was too clever to openly exhibit any annoyance at the chief's decision. Indeed, he was always humble and obedient, bowing to every decree of his superior, even though in his heart he was ever plotting against him. And so George Macbean had become one of His Excellency's private secretaries, and very soon enjoyed a good deal of the confidence of his princ.i.p.al.

Hitherto, however, his work lying always at the Ministry, he had never had occasion to go to the palace. From the first moment of his arrival in Rome his mind had been full of recollections of Mary. He had seen her driving on the Pincio on the bright winter afternoons; he had pa.s.sed her in the Corso, and had seen her, exquisitely gowned, seated with her mother in a box at the Constanzi. But she had never once noticed him, and on that morning, when he had been compelled to call at the palace to receive instructions from his chief, who was unwell, they had come suddenly face to face for the first time.

The meeting gave them mutual satisfaction. There was no doubt upon that point. She had looked hard at him ere she recognised him, for, like all the corridors in those mediaeval palaces, it was not very light, and she would have pa.s.sed him without acknowledgment had he not uttered her name.