“You _shall_ know it, Captain Fyffe,” she answered, in a voice of weeping menace such as women use when they are both wounded and angry; “you shall have it in a word.” She dropped her fan upon her knees, and asked me, with a lugubrious air of triumph and reproach, “Did you ever hear of Constance Pleyel?” I was standing before her, and as she leaned forward suddenly to offer this surprising question I stepped back a little. A chair caught me at the back of the knees, and I dropped into it as if I had been shot. I have laughed in memory many a time over that ludicrous accident, but it was no laughing matter at the moment, for it sent a conviction to the old lady's mind which I do not think was altogether banished from it to her dying day. Of course the question in such a connection came upon me as a surprise. In all my searchings for the cause of her ladyship's distemper I had not lighted on the thought of Constance Pleyel. I was not so much amazed at it that the name alone could have bowled me over in that way; but Lady Rollinson's idea was that it had gone home instantly to a guilty conscience. “That is enough,” she said, “and more than enough.” With these words she arose and walked towards the door, but I intercepted her. “I beg your pardon, it is not enough, or nearly enough.” “You know the name,” she answered. “You have shown me enough to tell me that.” “I know the name, certainly,” I replied. “I have known the name and the person that owns the name for many years. But that fact affords a very partial explanation of your conduct. I must trouble you to sit down, Lady Rollinson, and listen to what I have to say.” The stupid, good old woman had taken her side already, and if anything had been needed to confirm her own mistaken judgment of the case that ludicrous accident would have supplied it. She fanned herself in an emotion made up of wrath and grief and dignity, glancing at me from time to time, and looking away again with an expression of disdain, which was hard for an innocent man to bear. “I suppose,” I said, as coolly as I could, “that whatever information you have upon this matter comes from the Baroness Bonnar?” I waited for an answer, but she gave no sign. “I must trouble you to tell me if that is so.” “You know that well enough,” she answered. “The Baroness Bonnar is the only friend the poor creature has in London.” “Do you know much of the Baroness Bonnar?” I asked. “Would it ever have occurred to you to guess that the Baroness Bonnar is neither more nor less than a paid Austrian spy, and that Miss Constance Pleyel is, in all probability, her confederate?” She looked at me with an incredulity so open that I felt it to be an insult, and she preserved the same disdainful silence. “I came here yesterday,” I continued, “to consult Violet--” She interrupted me almost with a shriek. “Don't mention that poor girl's name!” she cried. “I won't have it mentioned! I won't listen to it in this connection!”