“It betokens vengeance!” roared Graeme, no longer able to contain himself; and he began to pace rapidly the room.  Then stopping before me—­

“How long will you torment me with your scepticism?  Here, Betha,” he cried to the woman, who at the instant again called Rogers, “what did you see on the back of the boy?”

“The ten of diamonds, sir,” replied she, evidently frightened by the wild eyes of her master.  “But you are not to be feared.  Do I not know God’s signs when I see them fresh from his very finger?  I have seen them aforetime; and no man or woman on earth, no, even our minister, will convince me they are meant for nothing.  This bairn will be a rich man, but it will not be by the devil’s books; for he who made the mark does not tempt to evil by promises printed on the bodies of them he loves.”

“I want not this drivelling,” said her master, on whom her reading of the sign had an effect the very opposite of that intended.  “You’re a fool, but you have eyes.  Say, once for all, you saw it, and will swear.  Take her words, Rymer.”

“As clear as I see the mark on your cheek, sir,” she said, addressing me.  “It was not from one who loved you so well as your mother did when she bore you, you got that mark.”

“I got it from a villain called Ruggieri,” I replied, caring nothing for the start I produced in Graeme, but keeping my eye on the face of Rogers.

I will say nothing of what I observed on that long, sombre, saturnine index.  It was an experiment on my part, and I might have found something, merely because I expected it; nor do I think Graeme knew my object, though he felt the words as a surprise.

“And who is Ruggieri?” said the doctor, by way of putting a simple question.

“Perhaps an Italian,” said I.  “Rogers is, they say, the Scotch representative of that name.”

“It is a lie, sir!” cried the grave son of Aesculapius; but finding he had committed a mistake, he beat up an apology close upon the heels of his insult.  “I beg your pardon; I simply meant that the two names are different, and that you were out in your etymology.”

“I am satisfied,” I replied.

“And so am I,” growled the doctor, as he shuffled out, followed by Betha.

“What the devil do you mean?” said the colonel, coming up, and looking me sternly in the face.  “Is not this business serious enough for me and this house already, without the mention to that man, who knows nothing of me or of my history, of a name hateful to both you and me?”

“At present I have no intention of telling you what I meant by introducing that name in the presence of Rogers.”

“More mystery!” said he.

“No mystery—­all as plain as little Edith’s card she got from Trott, or the blazon in the wood, or the mark on the child’s back.  But I do not wish to dwell longer on a subject which gives you so much pain.  I am to be off in the morning, and I should wish, before I go, to know what is to be the issue of all this wonderful working.”