which men rise or sink to their own level, had achieved a position in which he consorted with kings, dukes, and princes of the realm, and boasted of a king for an intimate. In a moment he had rendered at naught the struggles of years--had tossed aside, as one would discard a worn-out hat or glove, all chances of future preferment in France and England--all for a foolish whim, for a pair of silly gray eyes. She hid her face in her arms. Fools! all fools! She hated herself that she did not hate Monsieur Mornay. Struggle as she would, now that he was gone she knew that the impulsive words that she had used when she had spurned him had sprung from no origin of thought or reflection, but were the rebellious utterings of anger at his intrusion--of resentment and uncharity at the tale he told. But what if it were true? She sat upright, and with a struggle tried dispassionately and calmly to go over, one by one, each word of his speech, each incident of his bearing, as he told his portentous story of the secrets of her family. How had Monsieur Mornay come into possession of all this information? She knew that Eloise de Bresac had died in France and that the Duke of Nemours had sent the body to be buried on the estates in Normandy, where it lay in the family tomb. She knew that Sir Henry Heywood’s intimacy with the Duke was of long standing, and that there was a mystery in regard to the death of this daughter of the house which had never been explained to her. Her grandfather had been ill at the time, she remembered, and had died before Sir Henry Heywood and her father--who had gone to France--had returned. The story of the Frenchman tallied strangely with the facts as she knew them. How did Mornay know of the unfortunate woman’s death at Amiens? Was the story of the Spaniard D’Añasco invented to comport with the family’s traditionary hatred of the Spanish? Were the names _Castillano_, of the ship, and Ruiz, of the boy, mere fabrications, to achieve an end? How did he know these things? The family history of the Bresacs was not an open book to all the world. No one but Sir Henry Heywood and herself had known of the visits to Paris and the death-place of Eloise.