He rose to his feet, and took a turn across the lawn. 'I see what is in your mind, but my dear Luscombe,'--and then he burst out into a laugh, a laugh that was sad, because it had a touch of hopelessness in it,--'I am afraid we are talking in the clouds,--I am afraid Lorna doesn't love me. If she does, she has shown no sign of it.' 'But are you going to let her go without a struggle?' He looked at me with flashing eyes. 'I thought you knew me better than that,' he said. 'No, I am going to fight for her, fight to the very last. But if she will not have me as I am,--if she will not have me without my father's money, which I will not take, then--then----' 'You'll see her marry Springfield? I say, Jack, you know all we have thought and said about Springfield?' 'I have something to tell you about Springfield,' he said quietly. CHAPTER XXXVII MAURICE ST. MABYN 'You don't know Maurice St. Mabyn, do you?' I shook my head. 'Spent all his life soldiering in the East, and knows more about Eastern affairs than any living man. Yes, I mean it. He knows any amount of Eastern dialects; speaks Arabic and Turkish like a native, and has a regular passion for mixing himself up in Eastern matters. He can pass himself off as a Fakir, a Dervish--anything you like. He knows the byways of Eastern cities and Eastern life better than any man I know of, and obtained a great reputation in certain official quarters for discovering plots inimical to British interests. That's Maurice St. Mabyn. A jolly chap, you understand, as straight as a die, and as fearless as a lion. A diplomatist too. He can be as secret as an oyster, and as stealthy as a sleuth-hound. He has been used more than once on delicate jobs.' 'But--but----' I interjected. 'In the July of 1914,' he went on without noticing my interruption, 'I was sitting alone in my show in Bizna where I was then stationed, when who should come in but Maurice. He looked as I thought a bit anxious and out of sorts. I hadn't seen him for more than a year, and he startled me. 'I asked him what he was doing in India, and he told me a curious yarn. He said that he'd been mixed up in a skirmish in Egypt, and that Springfield had tried to murder him.' 'You are sure of this?' I gasped. 'Sure! Of course I'm sure. He said that Springfield, who was also in the show, had for some time acted in a very suspicious way, and that during the row with the natives, the greater part of which had taken place during the night, Springfield had pounced upon him, stabbed him--and--and left him for dead. By one of those flukes which sometimes takes place, St. Mabyn didn't die. He turned up, weeks afterwards, and saw General Gregory. 'Now follow me closely here. It so happened that only that day Gregory had received a message telling him that German trouble was probable, and that reports were wanted from certain quarters where it was feared the Huns were trying to stir up trouble.' 'In India?' I asked.