"_I_ didn't. I may tell you frankly that I did _not_. The Marchesa! I knew her. But it never so much as crossed my mind that she had massacred her old hubby. 'Good God! The Marchesa!' Those were my exact words when I heard a week ago. Is Carstairs in London? I should like just to shake him by the hand." "He is not in town. He is still feeling the effects of his imprisonment." "I should like to have seen him. It was my fault he was found you know. I said 'Perhaps he's behind the screen.' Dreadfully sorry. Wish I hadn't. Only my fun. Never thought he was there, or anyone. I've never forgotten his coming out from behind the screen. But what I want to know is," Lord John tapped Wentworth on the arm with his eyeglass, and lowered his voice confidentially, "_why he ever went behind it_. That's what has been puzzling me ever since I read the Marchesa's confession. If he wanted to shield her, why the deuce did he hide at all? Why not strike a noble attitude bang in the middle of the room--from the first?" Wentworth looked at him astonished. The vague suspicion of the last weeks that Michael was concealing something from him was taking shape at last. There was no doubt that Lord John had got hold of a listener. "No, no, Maine. When Carstairs was hiding behind the screen he was not dying with anxiety to take the Marchesa's crime on his white shoulders--not at that moment. That explanation don't wash. I believe I know a better one." Wentworth became very red. "The Duchess's maid! Did you ever see her? No, evidently not. You've no time for looking at young maids. Taken up with contemplating an old maid in the glass. You miss a lot, I can tell you. She was the prettiest little baggage I've set eyes on for years. And she was not of an iron virtue. But she wouldn't look at a little thing like me. Can't think why. Come, now, don't look so demure. We aren't all plaister saints like you. _I'm_ not, in spite of my Madonna face. Wasn't that the truth? The Marchesa story is for the gallery. But you and I are behind the scenes. Mum's the word. But wasn't that why Carstairs was hanging about the house after everyone else had gone just for the same reason that I was--to get a word with that little hussy?" At that moment a tall, middle-aged man came into the room, and Lord John's roving eye fell upon him. He sprang to his feet. "Lossiemouth," he said, seizing the latter's unwilling hand. "Why, you're the very man I wanted to see. Congratulations, my dear chap. All my heart. Ship come in, and ancestral halls, and going to be married too, all in one fell swoop. Know Miss Bellairs a little. Jumped with her in the same skipping rope in childhood's happy hours, danced with her at her first ball. Madly in love with her. Never seen her since." Wentworth escaped. The chamber of his soul had been long in readiness, swept and garnished for the restless spirit that had returned to it--not alone. CHAPTER XXXIV