"You were at Vienna at the time, and ought to remember," said my Lord, quite calmly. "Murat was keen to emancipate himself from the yoke of the Emperor, and was playing for his own hand. Southwald and I had been sent informally from Malta to Naples to discover what lengths he was prepared to go." "Nonsense, Wargrove, I know better," the Duke exclaimed. "That was not your real reason." "It was that which was marked on our passports and safe-conducts. But" (here he yawned courteously behind his hand) "perhaps your Highness has remarked that though the Buonapartes are doubtless all great rascals, their female kind have a habit of being deucedly pretty and liberal-minded women!" "But why then did your cousin mix himself up with little blackamoors?" "_Chacun a son gout!_" said Wargrove, lightly. "I always knew that my taste in women was better than Southies. So he got what I tell you, and I"--(he fingered at a ribbon), "I got the Order of the Golden Fleece--Murat's own, which he had brought from Madrid after the Dos de Mayo. Murat was pleased with me. I read the burial service over Southwald out of a prayer-book his mother had written his name in, with Murat and his Frenchmen standing round with bared heads like gentlemen, though they could never have seen a priest before in a Guards' uniform." "And the girl?" demanded the Duke. "Of course she was sought for and punished?" Wargrove sighed long and then paused to give his words wing. "Not at all," he said. "I think the general feeling was that Southwald was a fool and deserved what he got. I know that was my own impression!" "Jove!" cried the Duke, suddenly wroth, "I shall not suffer this, Wargrove. You mean me!" "That," said Wargrove, with a face like a statue hewn in granite, "is precisely as your Highness pleases." CHAPTER XIV THE END OF AN OLD FEUD Since the looting of his house by Laurence's dragoons, Adam Ferris had lived mostly at Abbey Burnfoot, the property of his brother-in-law Julian Wemyss. Julian was not there. He had gone to London upon unknown business. At least if Adam Ferris knew of his kinsman's mission, he would have been the very last man to speak of it. Nor indeed, did any try to wind the secret out of him. Adam had always been a silent man, distantly smiling and peaceable, but even then there was something about the man which caused his neighbours to be careful how they meddled with him. But now he brooded darkly, wandering much on the moor and along the shore. Only the old Earl dared to front him, and as there had been enmity between the houses for four hundred years, the first meeting was not without some piquancy.