Finally, through a cloud of smoke, he spoke again.  “Have you nothing to say?”

Bertrand stirred, but he did not lift his head.  “Nothing,” he muttered, almost inarticulately.

“Then”—­very evenly came the words—­“that ends the case.  I have nothing to say, either.  You can go as soon as you wish.”

He spoke with the utmost distinctness.  His head was tilted back, and his eyes, still with that icy glint of amusement in them, watched the smoke ascending from his cigarette.

There was a brief pause.  Then Bertrand stumbled stiffly to his feet.  He seemed to move with difficulty.  He turned heavily towards the Englishman.

“Monsieur,” he said with ceremony, “you have—­I believe—­the right to prosecute me.”

Mordaunt did not even look at him.  “I believe I have,” he said.

“Alors—­” the Frenchman paused.

“I shall not exercise it,” Mordaunt said curtly.

“You are too generous,” Bertrand answered.

He spoke without emotion, yet there was something in his tone—­something remotely suggestive of irony—­that brought Mordaunt’s eyes down to him.  He looked at him hard and straight.

But Bertrand did not meet the look.  With a mournful gesture he turned away.  “I shall never cease to regret,” he said, “the unhappy fate that sent me into your life.  I blame myself bitterly—­bitterly.  I should have drawn back at the commencement, but I had not the strength.  Only monsieur, believe this”—­his voice suddenly trembled—­“it was never my intention to rob you.  Moreover, that which I have taken—­I will restore.”

He spoke very earnestly, with a baffling touch of dignity that seemed in some fashion to place him out of reach of contempt.

Mordaunt heard him without impatience, and replied without scorn.  “What you have taken can never be restored.  The utmost you can do is to let me forget, as soon as possible, that I ever imagined you to be—­what you are not.”

The simplicity of the words effected in an instant that which neither taunt nor sneer could ever have accomplished.  It pierced straight to Bertrand’s heart.  He turned back impulsively, with outstretched hands.

“But, my friend—­my friend—­” he cried brokenly.

Mordaunt checked him on the instant with a single imperious gesture of dismissal, so final that it could not be ignored.

The words died on Bertrand’s lips.  He wheeled sharply, as if at a word of command, and went to the door.

But as he opened it, Mordaunt spoke.  “I will see you again in the morning.”

“Is it necessary?” Bertrand said.

“I desire it.”  Mordaunt spoke with authority.

Bertrand turned and made him a brief, punctilious bow.  “That is enough,” he said, and left the room martially, his head in the air.

CHAPTER V

A DESPERATE REMEDY