“For aught we know the attempt upon the lady’s life may prove successful after all,” said Hugh despairingly.  “The doctors hold out no hope of her recovery.”

“None.  A third doctor has been in consultation—­Doctor Bazin, from Beaulieu.  He only left a quarter of an hour ago.  He told me that the poor Signorina cannot possibly live!  Ah! messieurs, how terrible all this is—­povera Signorina!  She was always so kind and considerate to us all.”  And the old man’s voice trembled with emotion.

Walter Brock gazed around the luxurious room and at the long open window through which streamed the bright morning sun, with the perfume of the flowers outside.  What was the mystery concerning Mademoiselle Yvonne?  What foundation had the gossips for those constant whisperings which had rendered the handsome woman so notorious?

True, the story of the death of Hugh’s father was an unusually strange one, curious in every particular—­and stranger still that the secret was held by this beautiful, but mysterious, woman who lived in such luxury, and who gambled so recklessly and with invariable good fortune.

As they walked back to the town Hugh’s heart sank within him.

“She will die,” he muttered bitterly to himself.  “She’ll die, and I shall never learn the truth of the poor guv’nor’s sad end, or the reason why I am being forced to marry Louise Lambert.”

“It’s an iniquitous will, Hugh!” declared his friend.  “And it’s infernally hard on you that just at the very moment when you could have learnt the truth that shot was fired.”

“Do you think the woman had any hand in my father’s death?” Hugh asked.  “Do you think that she had repented, and was about to try and atone for what she had done by confessing the whole affair?”

“Yes.  That is just the view I take,” answered Brock.  “Of course, we have no idea what part she played in the business.  But my idea is that she alone knows the reason why this marriage with Louise is being forced upon you.”

“In that case, then, it seems more than likely that I’ve been followed here to Monte Carlo, and my movements watched.  But why has she been shot?  Why did not her enemies shoot me?  They could have done so twenty times during the past few days.  Perhaps the shot which hit her was really intended for me?”

“I don’t think so.  There is a monetary motive behind your marriage with Louise.  If you died, your enemy would gain nothing.  That seems clear.”

“But who can be my secret enemy?” asked the young man in dismay.

“Mademoiselle alone knows that, and it was undoubtedly her intention to warn you.”

“Yes.  But if she dies I shall remain in ignorance,” he declared in a hard voice.  “The whole affair is so tangled that I can see nothing clearly—­only that my refusal to marry Louise will mean ruin to me—­and I shall lose Dorise in the bargain!”

Walter Brock, older and more experienced, was equally mystified.  The pessimistic attitude of the three doctors who had attended the injured woman was, indeed, far from reassuring.  The injury to the head caused by the assailant’s bullet was, they declared, most dangerous.  Indeed, the three medical men marvelled that she still lived.