"No. You can never secure my release," he declared, with despair.

"They dare not give me my liberty for their own sakes. Jules Dubard and that Englishman George Macbean will take good care that I never come forth to denounce them."

"George Macbean?" she gasped open-mouthed, all the colour fading from her cheeks. "Do you know him? Is he actually one of those who is responsible for this?"

For answer, the man behind the bars clenched his teeth and nodded in the affirmative.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

THE CAPTAIN IS OUTSPOKEN.

"But tell me," cried Mary, utterly amazed at the unhappy man's startling allegations, "do you actually declare that Dubard and Mr Macbean have conspired in order to throw the opprobrium upon you?"

"I do," he answered in a low, hard tone. "I am convinced of it.

Macbean is an Englishman living in London--secretary to an English deputy named Morgan-Mason."

"He is a friend of mine," she remarked quietly. "I know him quite well."

"Then do not trust him," Solaro urged. "He is the--" But he hesitated, as though fearing to make any direct charge against one who was her friend.

"The what?" she inquired eagerly.

For a few moments he remained silent.

"He is the man who, with Dubard, was the cause of my downfall," he responded, although from his hesitating tone she felt a.s.sured that those words were not what he had first intended to utter.

"And Dubard?" she asked, her face now very grave.

"What use is it to discuss either of them?" he said bitterly. "I am their victim--that is all."

"But with what motive?" she asked, bewildered at this revelation. "What connection can Mr Macbean possibly have with these false scandalous charges against you?"

"Ah! the motive is more than I can tell," he declared. "I can only surmise it."

"But there surely must be some motive!" she remarked, at the same time recollecting what she had learnt, that the information furnished by Dubard formed the basis of the charges intended to be levelled by the Socialists against her father.

"I have never had an opportunity of ascertaining it," he said. "I would, however, desire to warn you most strongly against that man Macbean."

Mary remained silent. What he had said puzzled and mystified her. His words were not prompted by motives of jealousy. That was impossible, for he was unaware of Macbean's presence in Rome. As far as she knew, the two men had never been acquainted--the one an officer in garrison in the Alps, and the other living in far-off London. She endeavoured to induce him to speak more plainly, but it was evident that her acknowledgment that Macbean was her friend prevented him from opening his mind concerning him.

All her sympathies being with the imprisoned man, she felt a distinct suspicion arising within her concerning the young Englishman.--She wondered whether after all he had really schemed to obtain an appointment in the Ministry; if his present position was only in furtherance of some sinister object?

She spoke of Dubard, but the prisoner was equally silent concerning him.

"What I can tell you about either of them amounts to nothing without proof, and without my liberty I cannot obtain that. They know it!" he said angrily. "They know that while I am here, in prison, my lips are sealed!"

"But it is infamous!" exclaimed the red-faced old general. "If you were the victim of a plot laid by these two fellows, whoever they are, the matter ought to be sifted to the bottom. I don't believe you are guilty, Solaro! I told His Excellency the Minister so!"

"Ah, my dear general, you have been my best friend," declared the man now clothed in sacking in lieu of a uniform. "But your efforts must all be unavailing. They are sending me to the loneliness of Gorgona, that place where many a better man than myself has been driven insane by solitude. They know that on Gorgona I shall not live very long--indeed, they will take very good care of that."

"They--who are they?" inquired Mary quickly.

"My enemies."

"Mr Macbean and Dubard, you mean?"

"No, others--others I need not name," he responded vaguely, with a careless shrug of his shoulders.

"But if you are the victim of a plot it must have been a most elaborate one, for the ma.s.s of evidence against you seems overwhelming. What object could the conspirators have had in view? Were they friends of yours?"

"Yes--once. Their object was probably not of their own--but that of others," he added.

His words left the impression upon her that his conviction was part of the elaborate scheme of Angelo Borselli. And yet was not that very man now urging her to secure his release!

The affair was increased in mystery a thousandfold.

"Then if Mr Macbean was only slightly known to you why should he have plotted to secure your ruin and imprisonment?" she queried in eagerness.

"As I have already said, they were both in peril as long as I was at liberty. It was to their own interests--indeed for their own safety-- that I should be sent here."

"What do they fear?"

"They fear what I could reveal--the facts that I could prove if I were not held here a prisoner," he said bitterly.

"And would those facts be strange ones?"

"They would be startling--they would create a sensation throughout Italy. They would throw a new light on certain affairs connected with the Ministry of War that would come as a thunderclap upon the people."

"You defied the Minister, remember," his general remarked gravely.

"I know. I lost my head. I broke my sword and threw the pieces at his feet in defiance. I was foolish--ah! very foolish. Only I was angry at his refusal to order a revision of my trial."

"Yes," the general admitted. "You have prejudiced yourself in His Excellency's eyes, I fear. Your indignation was but natural, but it was ill-advised at that moment. The Minister Morini is not the man to brook defiance in that manner."

"But I do defy him still!" cried the desperate man, turning to the tragic figure in black. "Although he is your father, signorina, I repeat that he has done me an injustice--and that injustice is because he, like the others, fears to give me my liberty!"

"But if you were released--if I could manage to obtain for you a pardon--would you make the revelations of which you have spoken?"

For some minutes he was silent, thinking deeply, apparently reflecting upon the consequences of speaking the truth. Then he answered--

"No. I think not."

"Why not?"

"Because--well, because there are one or two facts of which I have no absolute proof."

"But you are certain of Dubard's connection with the false charges against you?"

"Positive. He arranged with Filomena Nodari for _my_ betrayal."