"What I have told you this evening concerning Ella's engagement to that blackguard has surprised you, and it has also shown you that the mysterious secret of your father's of which you have spoken may be imperilled, eh?" She nodded. Then, after some hesitation, she said:--"Not only that, but something further. That Gordon-Wright should aspire to Ella's hand is utterly mystifying." "Why?" "Well--you recollect what I told you regarding--regarding that man who died in the house where you were living in London," she said, in a low, faltering voice. "You mean the ex-Minister of Justice, Nardini?" She nodded an affirmative. "I remember perfectly all that you told me. He refused to speak the truth concerning you." "He laughed in my face when I asked him to make a confession that would save me," she said hoarsely, her dark eyes flashing with a dangerous fire. "He was a coward; he sacrificed me, a woman, because he feared to speak the truth. Ah!" she cried, clenching her hands, "you see me here wearing a mask of calm and tranquillity, but within my heart is a volcano of bitterness, of scorn for that wretched embezzler who carried his secret to the grave." "I can quite understand it, and fully sympathise with you," I said, in a kindly tone, recollecting all that had passed between us after she had discovered the mysterious Italian dead in that upstairs room at Shepherd's Bush. "But I hope you are not still disturbed over what may, after all, be merely an ungrounded fear?" "Ungrounded!" she cried. "Ah! would to Heaven it were ungrounded. No. The knowledge that the blow must fall upon me sooner or later--to-day, to-morrow, in six months' time, or in six years--holds me ever breathless in terror. Each morning when I wake I know not whether I shall again return to my bed, or whether my next sleep will be within the grave." "No, no," I protested, "don't speak like this. It isn't natural." But I saw how desperate she had now become. "I intend to cheat them out of their revenge," she said, in a low whisper, the red glow of the sundown falling full upon her haggard face. "They shall never triumph over me in life. With my corpse they may do as they think proper." "They? Who are they?" "Shall I tell you?" she cried, her starting eyes fixing themselves upon mine. "That man Gordon-Wright is one of them." "He is your enemy?" I gasped. "One of my bitterest. He believes I am in ignorance, but fortunately I discovered his intention. I told Nardini, and yet he refused to speak. He knew the peril in which I existed, and yet, coward that he was, he only laughed in my face. He fled from Rome. I followed him to England only to discover that, alas! he was dead--that he had preserved his silence." "It was a blackguardly thing," I declared. "And this fellow, Gordon-Wright, or whatever he calls himself, though your father's friend, is at the same time your worst enemy?"