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 “Truly a faithful servant,” said Ziegler, with a strong suspicion of a sneer. “And now, Mr. Forsyth, I have a question to ask which you are at liberty to answer or not as you please, but on which the future security of his Grace will probably depend. I shall draw my own deductions from a refusal to answer, and take it as an affirmative. Has the Duke disclosed to either you or General Sadgrove, or, as far as you are aware, to anyone else, the reason of his recent differences with us?”

Forsyth rejoiced that he was able to reply in the negative. “No,” he said promptly and with evident truth; “he has always steadily refused to enlighten my uncle and myself as to the cause of his being so persecuted. We have been kept absolutely in the dark.”

He did not feel called upon to add, as he might have done, that a good deal of that darkness had been penetrated by General Sadgrove’s acumen, and that the design on Senator Sherman’s gold bonds was an open book to them.

Ziegler, however, was satisfied with the reply. Signing to the pretentious Benzon, who throughout the interview had hovered close to his master’s couch, he conferred with him in a