"Even Marvin could not tell you for certain," replied Colville, mildly. He did not seem to perceive a difference in Barebone's manner toward himself. The quickest intelligence cannot follow another's mind beyond its own depth. "Then the inference is that my father was the illegitimate son of the Comte d'Artois." "Afterward Charles X, of France," supplemented Colville, significantly. "Is that the inference?" persisted Barebone. "I should like to know your opinion. You must have studied the question very carefully. Your opinion should be of some interest, though--" "Though--" echoed Colville, interrogatively, and regretted it immediately. "Though it is impossible to say when you speak the truth and when you lie." And any who doubted that there was royal blood in Leo Barebone's veins would assuredly have been satisfied by a glance at his face at that moment; by the sound of his quiet, judicial voice; by the sudden and almost terrifying sense of power in his measuring eyes. Colville turned away with an awkward laugh and gave his attention to the logs on the hearth. Then suddenly he regained his readiness of speech. "Look here, Barebone," he cried. "We must not quarrel; we cannot afford to do that. And after all, what does it matter? You are only giving yourself the benefit of the doubt--that is all. For there is a doubt. You may be what you--what we say you are, after all. It is certain enough that Marie Antoinette and Fersen were in daily correspondence. They were both clever--two of the cleverest people in France--and they were both desperate. Remember that. Do you think that they would have failed in a matter of such intense interest to her, and therefore to him? All these pretenders, Naundorff and the others, have proved that quite clearly, but none has succeeded in proving that he was the man." "And do you think that I shall be able to prove that I am the man--when I am not?" By way of reply Dormer Colville turned again to the fireplace and took down the print of Louis XVI engraved from a portrait painted when he was still Dauphin. A mirror stood near, and Colville came to the table carrying the portrait in one hand, the looking-glass in the other. "Here," he said, eagerly, "Look at one and then at the other. Look in the mirror and then at the portrait. Prove it! Why, God has proved it for you." "I do not think we had better bring Him into the question," was the retort: an odd reflex of Captain Clubbe's solid East Anglian piety. "No. If we go on with the thing at all, let us be honest enough to admit to ourselves that we are dishonest. The portrait in that locket points clearly enough to the Truth." "The portrait in that locket is of Marie Antoinette," replied Colville, half sullenly. "And no one can ever prove anything contrary to that. No one except myself knows of--of this doubt which you have stumbled upon. De Gemosac, Parson Marvin, Clubbe--all of them are convinced that your father was the Dauphin." "And Miss Liston?"