She looked at him curiously—­as one might regard a wild beast.

“You can speak like this before his son?”

“I veil my words at no time and for no man,” he answered.  “The truth is always best.”

Then the door opened, and Blenavon entered.  His arm and head were bandaged, and he walked with a limp.  He was deathly pale, and apparently very nervous.  He attempted a casual greeting with Ray, but it was a poor pretence.  Ray, for his part, had evidently no mind to beat about the bush.

“Lord Blenavon,” he said, “this house is no fit place for your father’s son.  I have warned you before, but the time for advice is past.  Your hostess here is a creature of the French police, and her business here is to suborn you and others whom she can buy or cajole into a treasonable breach of confidence.  It is very possible that you know all this, and more.  But I appeal to you as an Englishman and the representative of a great English family.  Are you willing to leave at once with us and to depart altogether from this part of the country, or will you face the consequences?”

Blenavon was a coward.  He shook and stammered.  He was not even master of his voice.

“I do not understand you,” he faltered.  “You have no right to speak to me like this.”

“Right or no right, I do,” Ray answered.  “If you refuse I shall not spare you.  Last night was only one incident of many.  I break my faith as a soldier by giving you this opportunity.  Will you come?”

“I am waiting now for a carriage,” Blenavon answered.  “I have sent to the house for one.”

“You will not return to the house,” Ray said shortly.  “You will leave here for the station, the station for London, and London for the Continent.  You do this, and I hold my peace.  You refuse, and I see Lord Chelsford and your father to-night.”

From the first I knew that he would yield, but he did it with an ill grace.

“I don’t see why I should go,” he said, sulkily.

“Either you and I together, or I alone, are going to catch the six o’clock train to London,” Ray said.  “If I go alone you will be an exile from England for the rest of your life, your name will be removed from every club to which you belong, and you will have brought irreparable disgrace upon your family.  The choice is yours.”

Blenavon turned towards the woman as though for aid.  But she stood with her back to him, pale and with a thin scornful smile upon her lips.

“The choice,” Ray repeated, glancing at his watch, “is yours, but the time is short.”

“I will go,” Blenavon said.  “I was off in a day or two, anyway.  Of what you suspect me I don’t know, and I don’t care.  But I will go.”

Ray put his watch into his pocket.  He turned to Mrs. Smith-Lessing.

“Better come too,” he said quietly.  “You have no more chance here.  Every one knows now who and what you are.”