"Besides, Doris," I went on earnestly, "this particular commission of his means everything that I really value in life--it means you! Don't you recollect, as keenly as I do, how the colonel has forbidden us to be formally engaged until I can point to at least a thousand pounds, which I can tell him truthfully that I have made out of this new fantastic profession of mine as a secret investigator? Well, listen to me. If all goes well I see my way now quite easily to make this amount out of Casteno alone. Already he has handed me seven hundred and fifty pounds, and I can quickly run out other work on his behalf amounting to that extra two fifty. As for Lord Fotheringay, he'll never be of any professional use to me. Ever since he got back from America he's been quite a different man to all of us who were his old friends. Something dreadful must have happened to him there. He's changed hideously for the worse." And then I stopped suddenly. This casual reference to America recalled something to me (like casual references often do to all of us) that I had quite forgotten. It was nothing less than a connection with America which both Lord Fotheringay and the dead priest, Father Alphonse Calasanctius, had in common. Could it--I now asked myself--could it really happen that Don Jose Casteno had also come from that same South American Republic--the Republic of Mexico? And could those faded parchment rolls relate to some secret which the Earl of Fotheringay had discovered whilst he was in Mexico, and in regard to which he had procured the assistance of Zouche, one of the finest, most noted palaeographists and experts in mediaeval cypher that the British Museum has ever employed? "I don't care," put in Doris firmly, "I don't care about this point of view of yours. I've a strong intuition that no good will come to you or to me by your association with this foreigner, Casteno. Believe me at least in this, that my father is not a man to speak or to act lightly, and he who really knows all, remember, says most solemnly that you must give this man's friendship up now--at once." "I won't," I snapped decisively. "For my sake," she pleaded, and her eyes were lustrous with unshed tears. "I have given my word," I repeated, throwing my shoulders back with an effort. "Break it. It was obtained from you by fraud," suggested this gentle casuist. "'Twould be no sin." "But the money," I cried, and the thought restored my determination to its full strength. Even Doris wavered. The temptation was indeed cruel. "The money will do us no good," she replied at length. "I prefer we should wait."