Beneath the brim of the helmet, which he had not laid aside, the Jew's keen black eyes were watching, watching. But they saw nothing; for there is no one so impenetrable as a man with a clear conscience and a large faith. “My idea was,” continued General Michael, “that two, or at the most three, people besides you and I be let into the secret.” “Three,” said Agar, with quiet decision. “Three?” “Yes.” The General tacitly allowed this point and passed on with characteristic promptitude to another. “Are you a man of property?” “Yes, I inherit my father's place down in Hertfordshire.” “I'll tell you why I ask. There are those beastly lawyers to think of. At your death it is to be presumed that the estate comes to your brother. The legal operations must be delayed somehow. I will see to it,” he added in a concise, almost snappish way. Agar smiled, although he was conscious of a vague feeling of discomfort. He was not a highly sensitive or a nervous man, and this feeling was more than might have been expected to arise from an attendance, as it were, at one's own obituary arrangements. The General seemed to be remarkably well informed on these smaller points, and something prompted Jem Agar to ask him if the idea he had just propounded was a suddenly conceived one. “No,” replied the General with a singular pause. “No, I once knew a man who did the same thing for a different purpose, but the idea was identical. I do not claim to be the originator.” “And there was no hitch? It was successful?” inquired Agar. “Yes,” replied the older soldier in a far-away voice, as if he had mentally gone back to the results of that man's deception. “Yes, it was successful. By the way, you say your people live down in Hertfordshire?” “Yes.” “I once knew a girl--long ago, in my younger days--who married a man called Agar, and went to live in Hertfordshire. The name did not strike me until you mentioned the county. I wonder if the lady is now your step-mother.” “My step-mother's name was Hethbridge,” replied Jem Agar. “The same. How strange!” said the General indifferently. “Well, she has probably forgotten my existence these thirty years. She has one son, you say?” “Yes, Arthur. He is twenty-three--five years younger than myself.” The shifty black eyes excelled themselves at this moment in rapidity of observation. They seemed to be full of question, of many questions, but none were forthcoming. “Ah!” said General Michael indifferently. “He is,” pursued Jem Agar, “a delicate fellow; does nothing; though I believe he is going to be called to the Bar.” The General, having passed most of his life in India, where men work or else go home, did not take in the full meaning of this; but he was keen as a ferret, and he saw easily that Jem Agar despised his step-brother with that cruel contempt which strong men feel for weak. “Mother's darling?” he suggested.