He looked at her with increased interest, marking the straight, supple lines of her, and the handsome, high-bred face. His lordship, remember, never lacked an appreciative eye for a fine woman. “So you’re Jack Armytage’s niece. Give me news of him, my dear.” She did so. Jack Armytage was well and prospering, had made a rich marriage and retired from the Blues many years ago to live at Northampton. He listened with interest, and thus out of his boyhood friendship for her uncle, which of late years he had had no opportunity to express, sprang there and then a kindness for the niece. Her own personal charms may have contributed to it, for the great soldier was intensely responsive to the appeal of beauty. They reached the terrace. Lady O’Moy was nowhere in sight. But Lord Wellington was too much engrossed in his discovery to be troubled. “My dear,” he said, “if I can serve you at any time, both for Jack’s sake and your own, I hope that you will let me know of it.” She looked at him a moment, and he saw her colour come and go, arguing a sudden agitation. “You tempt me, sir,” she said, with a wistful smile. “Then yield to the temptation, child,” he urged her kindly, those keen, penetrating eyes of his perceiving trouble here. “It isn’t for myself,” she responded. “Yet there is something I would ask you if I dare--something I had intended to ask you in any case if I could find the opportunity. To be frank, that is why I was waiting there in the garden just now. It was to waylay you. I hoped for a word with you.” “Well, well,” he encouraged her. “It should be the easier now, since in a sense we find that we are old friends.” He was so kind, so gentle, despite that stern, strong face of his, that she melted at once to his persuasion. “It is about Lieutenant Richard Butler,” she began. “Ah,” said he lightly, “I feared as much when you said it was not for yourself you had a favour to ask.” But, looking at him, she instantly perceived how he had misunderstood her. “Mr. Butler,” she said, “is the officer who was guilty of the affair at Tavora.” He knit his brow in thought. “Butler-Tavora?” he muttered questioningly. Suddenly his memory found what it was seeking. “Oh yes, the violated nunnery.” His thin lips tightened; the sternness of his ace increased. “Yes?” he inquired, but the tone was now forbidding. Nevertheless she was not deterred. “Mr. Butler is Lady O’Moy’s brother,” she said. He stared a moment, taken aback. “Good God! Ye don’t say so, child! Her brother! O’Moy’s brother-in-law! And O’Moy never said a word to me about it. “What should he say? Sir Terence himself pledged his word to the Council of Regency that Mr. Butler would be shot when taken.” “Did he, egad!” He was still further surprised out of his sternness. “Something of a Roman this O’Moy in his conception of duty! Hum! The Council no doubt demanded this?” “So I understand, my lord. Lady O’Moy, realising her brother’s grave danger, is very deeply troubled.”