"Because--well, forgive me for saying so, my dear Flockart--because you've been a fool, and have allowed her to know." "It wasn't I; it was the woman." "Lady Heyburn! Why, I always believed her to be the soul of discretion." "She's been too defiant of consequences. A dozen times I've warned her; but she will not heed." "Then she'll land herself in a deep hole if she isn't careful," replied the foreigner, speaking very fair English. "Does she know I'm here?" "Of course not. If we're to play the game she must know nothing. She's already inclined to throw prudence to the winds, and to confess all to her husband." "Confess!" gasped the stranger, paling beneath his rather sallow skin. "_Per Bacco!_ she's not going to be such an idiot, surely?" "We were run so close, and so narrowly escaped discovery after I got at those papers at Glencardine, that she seems to have lost heart," Flockart remarked. "But if she acted the fool and told Sir Henry, it would mean ruin for us, and that would also mean----" "It would mean exposure for Gabrielle," interrupted Flockart. "The old man dare not lift his voice for his daughter's sake." "Ah," exclaimed Krail, "that's just where you've acted injudiciously! You've set him against her; therefore he wouldn't spare her." "It was imperative. I couldn't afford to be found prying into the old man's papers, could I? I got impressions of his key while walking in the park one day. He's never suspected it." "Of course not. He believes in you," laughed his friend, "as one of the few upright men who are his friends! But," he added, "you've done wrong, my dear fellow, to trust a woman with a secret. Depend upon it, her ladyship will let you down." "Well, if she does," remarked Flockart, with a shrug of the shoulders, "she'll have to suffer with me. You know where we should all find ourselves." The man pulled a wry face and puffed at his cigarette in silence. "What does the girl do?" asked Flockart a few moments later. "Well, she seems to have a pretty dull time with the old lady. I stayed at the 'Cardigan Arms' at Woodnewton for two days--a miserable little place--and watched her pretty closely. She's out a good deal, rambling alone across the country with a collie belonging to a neighbouring farmer. She's the very picture of sadness, poor little girl!" "You seem to sympathise with her, Krail. Why, does she not stand between us and fortune?" "She'll stand between us and a court of assize if that woman acts the fool!" declared the shabby stranger, who moved so rapidly and whose vigilance seemed unequalled. "If we go, she shall go also," Flockart declared in a threatening voice. "But you must prevent such a _contretemps_," Krail urged. "Ah, it's all very well to talk like that! But you know enough of her ladyship to be aware that she acts on her own initiative."