"September of last year?" "Of last year." "Anno Domini 1685," laughed Culverton. "There seems to be some doubt about the date." "September, 1685," repeated the Countess with a curious insistency. "There is no doubt," returned Marston hotly. "I could wish for Betty's sake we had not such cause to remember it. She was betrothed to one of Monmouth's rebels, curse him! and Betty was so distressed by his capture that her health gave way." I was upon tenterhooks lest Ilga should inquire the name of the rebel. But she merely remarked in an absent way, as though she attached no significance to his words: "'Tis a sad story." "In truth it is, and the only consolation we got from it was that the rebel swung for his treachery. Betty was ordered forthwith abroad, and she left England on the fourteenth of September. I remember the day particularly since it was her birthday." "September the fourteenth!" said the Countess; and I, thinking to make out my case beyond dispute, cried triumphantly: "The very day whereon I bade good-bye to Leyden." The words were barely off my lips when Ilga rose to her feet. She stood for a moment with her eyes very wide and her bosom heaving. "I am convinced," she whispered to me with an odd smile. "I ought not to have needed the proof. I am convinced." With that she turned a little on one side, and Marston resumed: "That proves how little Mr. Buckler is acquainted with Lady Tracy." He spoke as though I had been endeavouring to persuade the company that I was intimate with his sister; he almost challenged me to contradict him. I could not but admire the effrontery of the man in carrying off the exposure of his falsity with so high a head, and I surmised that he had some new contrivance in his mind whereby he might subsequently set himself right with Ilga. One thing, however, was apparent to me: that he had no suspicion of his sister's acquaintance with Count Lukstein. "It was on the fourteenth that Betty set out for France," he once more declared, and so walked away. "Where she married most happily three months later," sniggered Culverton. "As you say, madame, it is a very sad story." The Countess laughed. "She was not over-constant to her rebel." "In the matter of the affections," replied Culverton, "Lady Tracy was ever my Lady Bountiful." It seemed to me that the Countess turned a shade paler, but any inference which I might have drawn adverse to myself from that was prevented by a proposal which she presently mooted. For some other of our friends joining us about this time, she proposed for a frolic that the party should take chairs and immediately invade my lodgings. Needless to say, I most heartily seconded the proposition, apologising at the same time for the poor hospitality which the suddenness of the invitation compelled me to offer.