“I didn’t insult her,” declared Noel.  “I only said I knew she was telling a cram.  She knew it too.”

“I know what you said,” Mordaunt returned with brevity.  “And you are not to say it again.  Also, I must ask you to bear in mind that when I say a thing I mean it—­invariably.  I’ve had more than enough disobedience from you lately.”

“Oh, I say,” said Noel, winking gaily, “you don’t want much, do you?”

Mordaunt relaxed a little.  He put his hand on the boy’s shoulder for a moment.  “You can be quite a good chap if you try,” he said.

Noel responded like a dog to a caress.  “The mischief is to keep it up,” he said.  “But we won’t quarrel anyhow.  I’ll make every allowance for you, old boy, for you’re in a beastly unhealthy position; and you’ll have to do the same—­savvy?  But for all that, that letter was no more written by Mrs. Pouncefort than by the man in the moon.”

“That letter,” Mordaunt said very deliberately, “is neither your affair nor mine.”

Could he have seen Chris at that moment he might have changed his mind upon that point, but her young brother’s careless chatter kept him from seeking her; nor would he very readily have found her had he done so.

For Chris was securely locked in a little room at the top of the house that had been her childhood’s bedroom, and here with blanched face and hands that shook she was reading and reading again the letter that had given rise to so much discussion.

The handwriting was cramped and erratic, wholly unfamiliar, barely decipherable; but she had mastered the contents with tragic dexterity.  Her understanding had leaped to the words.

* * * * *

“MY DEAR MRS. MORDAUNT,” so went the letter, “You have probably forgotten my existence by this time, and it is with the utmost humility that I venture to recall it to your memory.  For myself, it will always be a lasting pleasure to have met you again, and the fact that I share with you a secret of other days cannot but prove a bond between us.  That secret I am prepared to guard faithfully, since—­apparently—­it is of value, if you on your part are ready to purchase my discretion with that of which all have need, but of which I temporarily am unhappily deficient.  Briefly, madame, for the sum of five hundred pounds I will undertake that the episode of Valpre shall be consigned to oblivion so far as I am concerned.  Otherwise, the strict husband may hear more than you have considered it convenient to tell him.

“Yours, with many compliments,
GUILLAUME RODOLPHE.”

CHAPTER X

A WARNING VOICE

Five hundred pounds!  Five hundred pounds!  It represented her year’s income to Chris.

All night long she lay wide-eyed and still, facing her problem with a quaking heart.  It was like a suffocating weight upon her, crushing her down.  Five hundred pounds!  And the need thereof so urgent that it must be dealt with at once!  But how to obtain it?  How?  How?