“Ah, I see!” said Cleek, in reply; then, seating himself at the table, he arranged the shade of the lamp so that the light fell full upon the Major’s face while leaving his own in the shadow.  “Then your interest in the affair, Major, may be said to be a double one.”

“More, sir—­a triple one.  I have a rival in the shape of my own son.  He, too, wishes to marry Zuilika—­is madly enamoured of her, in fact; so wildly that I have always hesitated to confess my own desires to him for fear of the consequences.  He is almost a madman in his outbursts of temper; and where Zuilika is concerned—­Perhaps you will understand, Mr. Cleek, when I tell you that once when he thought her husband had ill-used her, he came within an ace of killing the man.  There was bad blood between them always—­even as boys—­and, as men, it was bitterer than ever because of her.”

“Suppose you begin at the beginning and tell me the whole story, Major,” suggested Cleek, studying the man’s face narrowly.  “How did the Earl of Wynraven’s son come to meet this singularly fascinating lady, and where?”

“In Turkey—­or Arabia—­I forget which.  He was doing his theatrical nonsense in the East with some barn-storming show or other, having been obliged to get out of England to escape arrest for some shady transaction a year before.  He was always a bad egg—­always a disgrace to his name and connections.  That’s why his father turned him off and never would have any more to do with him.  As a boy he was rather clever at conjuring tricks and impersonations of all sorts—­he could mimic anything or anybody he ever saw, from the German Emperor down to a Gaiety chorus girl, and do it to absolute perfection.  When his father kicked him out he turned these natural gifts to account, and, having fallen in with some professional dancing-woman, joined her for a time and went on the stage with her.

“It was after he had parted from this dancer and was knocking about London and leading a disgraceful life generally that he did the thing which caused him to hurry off to the East and throw in his lot with the travelling company I have alluded to.  He was always a handsome fellow and had a way with him that was wonderfully taking with women, so I suppose that that accounts as much as anything for Zuilika’s infatuation and her doing the mad thing she did.  I don’t know when nor where nor how they first met; but the foolish girl simply went off her head over him, and he appears to have been as completely infatuated with her.  Of course, in that land, the idea of a woman of her sect, of her standing, having anything to do with a Frank was looked upon as something appalling, something akin to sacrilege; and when they found that her father had got wind of it and that the fellow’s life would not be safe if he remained within reach another day, they flew to the coast together, shipped for England, and were married immediately after their arrival.”

“A highly satisfactory termination for the lady,” commented Cleek.  “One could hardly have expected that from a man so hopelessly unprincipled as you represent him to have always been.  But there’s a bit of good in even the devil, we are told.”