“From exposure.  To me, ruin is not a matter of days, but of hours.”

“You’re speaking in enigmas.  I don’t understand you,” he cried impatiently.  “Krail and I have at last been successful.  We know now the true source of your husband’s huge income, and in order to prevent exposure he must pay—­and pay us well too.”

“Yes,” she laughed hysterically.  “You tell me all this after you’ve blundered.”

“Blundered!  How?” he asked, surprised at her demeanour.

“What’s the use of beating about the bush?” asked her ladyship.  “The girl is back at Glencardine.  She knows everything, thanks to your foolish self-confidence.”

“Back at Glencardine!” gasped Flockart.  “But she dare not speak.  By heaven! if she does—­then—­then—­”

“And what, pray, can you do?” inquired the woman harshly.  “It is I who have to suffer, I who am crushed, humiliated, ruined, while you and your precious friend shield yourselves behind your cloaks of honesty.  You are Sir Henry’s friend.  He believes you as such—­you!” And she laughed the hollow laugh of a woman who was staring death in the face.  She was haggard and drawn, and her hands trembled with nervousness which she strove in vain to repress.  Lady Heyburn was desperate.

“He still believes in me, eh?” asked the man, thinking deeply, for his clever brain was already active to devise some means of escape from what appeared to be a distinctly awkward dilemma.  He had never calculated the chances of Gabrielle’s return to her father’s side.  He had believed that impossible.

“I understand that my husband will hear no word against you,” replied the tall, fair-haired woman.  “But when I speak he will listen, depend upon it.”

“You dare!” he cried, turning upon her in threatening attitude.  “You dare utter a single word against me, and, by Heaven!  I’ll tell what I know.  The country shall ring with a scandal—­the shame of your attitude towards the girl, and a crime for which you will be arraigned, with me, before an assize-court.  Remember!”

The woman shrank from him.  Her face had blanched.  She saw that he was equally as determined as she was desperate.  James Flockart always kept his threats.  He was by no means a man to trifle with.

For a moment she was thoughtful, then she laughed defiantly in his face.  “Speak!  Say what you will.  But if you do, you suffer with me.”

“You say that exposure is imminent,” he remarked.  “How did the girl manage to return to Glencardine?”

“With Walter’s aid.  He went down to Woodnewton.  What passed between them I have no idea.  I only returned the day before yesterday from the South.  All I know is that the girl is back with her father, and that he knows much more than he ought to know.”

“Murie could not have assisted her,” Flockart declared decisively.  “The old man suspects him of taking those Russian papers from the safe.”