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 Forsyth was too modest, too little of a coxcomb, for it to occur to him that violence could result from a misplaced passion for himself. On the whole, the General decided that, as Mrs. Talmage Eglinton was not due till the next day, he would say nothing to Alec at present.

“If I can make Beaumanoir disgorge his secret, the trouble may not arise,” he comforted himself. Though the veteran’s faith in himself was shaken, and he wished he had resisted the temptation to meddle with crime outside his old Eastern sphere, he was not the man to take his hand from the plough. He would devote all his diplomacy to penetrating the cause of the Duke’s obstinate silence.

As he had anticipated, there was a lull that day in the activity of the enemy—at any rate of overt attempts. No communication reached him from Azimoolah, who would certainly have been heard from if suspicious characters had been on the move in the neighborhood of the mansion; for, though unseen, that tireless tracker might be trusted to be at his post, which was anywhere and everywhere within the radius of a mile. The denser thickets of the park possibly concealed him, or it might be