It did not appear that M. Drakovics as yet possessed anything of the kind, although he was willing to detail the various theories which had been formed on the subject, but Cyril did not listen. His mind was occupied with a hypothesis of his own, the foundation fact of which was Madame O’Malachy’s headache of the evening before. Again and again he went through the details, for his suspicions at first seemed preposterous, but the more he thought over the matter, the more likely did it appear that Madame O’Malachy had slipped out of doors in disguise, carrying with her the necessary supply of petroleum, and successfully effected the firing of the chapel. His visit to the hotel with Caerleon had given him the means of reaching this conclusion, inasmuch as if they had not happened to call no one would have known that Madame O’Malachy was not spending the evening hours in the society of her family. The plot must have been maturing for some time, since both the disguise and the petroleum would be difficult to procure in Bellaviste without exciting suspicion, and it could not be doubted that its object was to delay the coronation,--although whether the lady had done her work in pursuance of orders from her Scythian employers, or with an eye to her daughter’s future, Cyril found himself unable to determine. It was not difficult to guess that she was playing a double game, and that whereas she had been commissioned to use every possible means to prevent Caerleon’s ascending the Thracian throne, she was not unwilling to assist him in establishing himself there, provided that her daughter shared his elevation. To pursue at the same time two lines of policy so diametrically opposed to one another might well need almost superhuman skill, and it appeared evident to Cyril that for the sake of placing her good faith to her employers beyond suspicion, Madame O’Malachy had taken a step so desperate that it bade fair to ruin her private schemes. Had he but overheard his brother’s parting conversation with her at Witska, he might have discovered that she had not yet found the problem of serving two masters an insoluble one. In spite of his ignorance of this factor in the case, however, he was filled with a lively admiration for both her resolution and her daring. “What an actress the woman must be!” he said to himself. “What pluck, what nerve she has! But this sort of thing won’t do. She will think nothing of dynamiting us before long, if this is the way she begins. We shall be obliged to take a hostage from her. She doesn’t care a scrap for the girl; but if Louis, for whom she does seem to have a little natural affection, were safely installed here, she would think twice before blowing us up. I must get that settled.”