"I understand," said Moreno. "And a very considerable price was paid to the man--or woman--I am convinced it was a woman, who sold you this information." "Quite right. But why do you say it was a woman?" asked Guy Rossett quickly. "If I had not already been sure it was a woman, my friend, I should be quite sure of it by your sudden question. You English people are not quite so subtle as we who have southern blood in our veins." Rossett bit his lip. He felt he had given himself away to this quick-witted foreigner, nine-tenths Spanish and one-tenth English. There was a long pause. Moreno shifted his point of attack. "Do you know that Mrs Hargrave is over in Spain, in Fonterrabia?" "What!" almost shouted Guy in his astonishment. Moreno looked at him steadily. "Ah, you have not heard that from headquarters. Well, you see, they don't know the little side-currents as well as I do. They do not know, for instance, that she is a sworn and apparently zealous member of the brotherhood." "Violet Hargrave, of all people!" cried Rossett. He was in a state of bewilderment. "You know, I daresay, that Mrs Hargrave is no friend of yours now, whatever she may have been once," said Moreno, speaking in his quiet, level tones. "Yes, I think I can understand that." "Come, Mr Rossett, throw off a little of that insular reserve, and let us talk together quite frankly. Believe me, I am speaking entirely in your own interests. There is no doubt that, at one time, you paid Mrs Hargrave very marked attention, that you fed her hopes very high." "I was a bit of a fool, certainly," admitted Guy. "And then, pardon me for speaking quite frankly, you threw her over rather abruptly, because you had fallen in love with somebody else--a woman, of course, a thousand times superior to the discarded one." "You seem to know all about it, Mr Moreno." "It is my business to know things," replied the journalist quietly. "Well, it is a case of the `woman scorned,' you know. I should say the fair Violet hated you now as much as she once loved you." "It may be possible. I have a notion that you know women better than I do." "Bad women perhaps," said Moreno quietly. "My experience has lain rather in their direction. I think I have only known three good women in my life, two of whom were my mother and a girl I was once engaged to--she died a week before our wedding day." Rossett regarded him with a sympathetic gaze. So this swarthy, black-browed young Spaniard had had his romance. His voice had broken as he spoke of his dead sweetheart. "I am sorry for your experience. Most of the women I have known have been very good, the fingers of one hand would count the bad. But tell me more about Violet Hargrave. She hates me, you say?" "I should say with a very bitter and malignant hatred," was Moreno's answer. "All arising, of course, from jealousy or disappointment. How far is this hatred going to lead her?" "I should say to the furthest point."