She smiled, yet not entirely without sourness. 'You do not lack a good opinion of yourself.' 'You may come to share it when I've said all that's in my mind. I have told you, madonna, whither these crack-brained adventurers are thrusting you, so that they may advance themselves. Do you know the true import of the conspiracy? Do you know what they plan, these fools? The murder of the Marquis Theodore.' She stared at him round-eyed, afraid. 'Murder?' she said in a voice of horror. He smiled darkly. 'They had not told you, eh? I knew they dared not. Yet so indiscreet and rash are they that they betrayed it to me--to me of whom they know nothing save that I carried as an earnest of my good faith your broken half-ducat. What if I were just a scoundrel who would sell to the Marquis Theodore a piece of information for which he would no doubt pay handsomely? Do you still think that it was accident brought me to interfere in your concerns?' 'I can't believe you! I can't!' and again she breathed, aghast, that horrid word: 'Murder!' 'If they succeeded,' said Bellarion coldly, 'all would be well. Your uncle would have no more than his deserts, and you and your brother would be rid of an evil incubus. The notion does not shock me at all. What shocks me is that I see no chance of success for a plot conducted by such men with such inadequate resources. By joining them you can but advance the Regent's aims, which you believe to be the destruction of your brother. Let the attempt be made, and fail, or even let evidence be forthcoming of the conspiracy's existence and true purpose, and your brother is at the Regent's mercy. The people themselves might demand his outlawry or even his death for an attempt upon the life of a prince who has known how to make himself beloved.' 'But my brother is not in this,' she protested. 'He knows nothing of it.' Bellarion smiled compassionately. '_Cui bono fuerit_? That is the first question which the law will ask. Be warned, madonna! Dissociate yourself from these men while it is time or you may enable the Regent at a single stride to reach his ultimate ambition.' The pallor of her face, the heave of her breast, were witnesses to her agitation. 'You would frighten me if I did not know how false is your main assumption: that they plot murder. They would never dare to do this thing without my sanction, and this they have never sought.' 'Because they intend to confront you with an accomplished fact. Oh, you may believe me, madonna. In the last twenty-four hours and chiefly from these men I have learnt much of the history of Montferrat. And I have learnt a deal of their own histories too. There is not one amongst them who is not reduced in circumstances, whose state has not been diminished by lack of fortune or lack of worth.' But for this she had an answer, and she delivered it with a slow, wistful smile.