"I rescued that document, together with some letters which my mother wrote my father when first he returned to England--and which are superfluous now--from a secret drawer in that desk, an hour ago." "But what is it ?" inquired Rotherby huskily.

"What is it ?" "It is the certificate of the marriage of my father, the late Lord Ostermore, and my mother, Antoinette de Maligny, at the Church of St.
Antoine in Paris, in the year 1689." He turned to Mr.Templeton.

"You apprehend the matter, sir ?" he demanded, and recapitulated.

"In 1689 they were married; in 1692 she died; yet in 1690 his lordship went through a form of marriage with Mistress Sylvia Etheridge, there." Mr.Templeton nodded very gravely, his eyes upon the document before him, that they might avoid meeting at that moment the eyes of the woman whom the world had always known as the Countess of Ostermore.
"Fortunate is it for me," said Mr.Caryll, "that I should have possessed myself of these proofs in time.

Does it need more to show how urgent might be the need for my suppression--how little faith can be attached to an accusation levelled against me from such a quarter ?" "By God--" began Rotherby, but his mother clutched his wrist.
"Be still, fool!" she hissed in his ear.