“Well, it must come to that, sooner or later. The world’s conditions are changing. Can a half-armed people survive, when the whole of the rest of the world is trained to arms? The growth of immense foreign armies is introducing new problems into British national life, whilst all the omens point to the probability that England’s position will be challenged in the near future! Diplomacy may do much, but, as Napoleon said, diplomacy without an armed force behind it, is like music without instruments!” “My dear chap,” sneered the other, “you talk like a newspaper correspondent.” “I do. I am actually quoting the Press.” “Oh, I bar these big questions. Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof. I suppose we are going to the west beat after this?” “Yes.” “I hope to goodness they won’t put _me_ in a butt next old Sir Timothy Quayle. He’s dangerous. Talk of being under fire! He blazed right into me--cannot see a yard. No business on a moor. Never was so frightened in my life! I threw clods at him and yelled, and he thought it was something to do with the coveys. There’ll be an accident some day. I say, why aren’t we moving? Where’s the marquis?” “Down there by the waterfall, talking to Lord Mulgrave.” “Well, I’m here to shoot my twenty to forty brace, not to talk”--rising to his feet and stretching himself. “I wish---- Oh, I see, it’s all right. There go the beaters.” “I say, Owen,” said the marquis, as he joined him, “I hope you have not had bad news, old boy?” “No,” replied the other, raising a colourless face, “but news that, if it is _true_, is the best that has come to me for more than twenty years. Here”--and he thrust the letter into his friend’s hand. “You had better read it yourself. To tell you the truth, I’m a bit knocked out of time. Of course, I’m going to Ireland to-night.” “Ireland!” echoed his companion. “What in the world would take you there?” “Read that, and you will understand.” The marquis, who was near-sighted, deliberately fumbled for his pince-nez, stuck it on his nose, and read with provoking leisure. “GLENVEIGH HOTEL, “CO. KERRY. “MY LORD, “I have recently come upon an astonishing discovery, and beg to acquaint you with my experience. I must ask you to prepare yourself for a piece of intelligence which must naturally be to you of the nature of a shock. “By accident I rambled into a ruined place called Lota, of which, many years ago, your lordship was the tenant, where, in short, her ladyship the first Lady Mulgrave died, after having given birth to a little girl. I there met an old man, once your gardener, who disclosed to me the amazing news that your daughter did not, as was supposed, die in infancy, but was kept in place of her dead child by the foster-mother, Katherine Foley, and reared as her own.