‘When a door opened,’ the Prince went on—­’the door of one of the rooms on the landing—­and a figure, all in white,—­it was Scremerston,—­emerged and disappeared down the stairs.  I followed at the top of my speed.  I heard a shot, or rather two pistols that rang out together like one.  I ran through the hall into the long back passage at right-angles to it, down the passage to the glimmer of light through the partly glazed door at the end of it.  Then my candle was blown out and three men set on me.  They had nearly pinioned me when you and Fenwick took them on both flanks.  You know the rest.  They had the boat unmoored, a light cart ready on the other side, and a steam-yacht lying off Warkworth.  The object, of course, was to kidnap me, and coerce or torture me into renewing the lease of the tables at Scalastro.  Poor Scremerston, who was a few seconds ahead of me, not carrying a candle, had fired in the dark, and missed.  The answering fire, which was simultaneous, killed him.  The shots saved me, for they brought you and Fenwick to the rescue.  Two of the fellows whom we damaged were—­’

‘The Genoese pipers, of course,’ said Logan.

’And you guessed, from the cry you gave, who my confessor (he banged the door, of course to draw me) turned out to be?’

’Yes, the head croupier at Scalastro years ago; but he wore a beard and blue spectacles in the old time, when he raked in a good deal of my patrimony,’ said Logan.  ‘But how was he planted on you?’

’My old friend, Father Costa, had died, and it is too long a tale of forgery and fraud to tell you how this wretch was forced on me.  He had been a Jesuit, but was unfrocked and expelled from Society for all sorts of namable and unnamable offences.  His community believed that he was dead.  So he fell to the profession in which you saw him, and, when the gambling company saw that I was disinclined to let that hell burn any longer on my rock, ingenious treachery did the rest.’

‘By Jove!’ said Logan.

* * * * *

The Prince of Scalastro, impoverished by his own generous impulse, now holds high rank in the Japanese service.  His beautiful wife is much admired in Yokohama.

The Earl was nursed through the long and dangerous illness which followed the shock of that dreadful July night, by the unwearying assiduity of his kinswoman, Miss Willoughby.  On his recovery, the bride (for the Earl won her heart and hand) who stood by him at the altar looked fainter and more ghostly than the bridegroom.  But her dark hour of levity was passed and over.  There is no more affectionate pair than the Earl and Countess of Embleton.  Lady Mary, who lives with them, is once more an aunt, and spoils, it is to be feared, the young Viscount Scremerston, a fine but mischievous little boy.  On the fate of the ex-Jesuit we do not dwell:  enough to say that his punishment was decreed by the laws of our country, not of that which he had disgraced.