mytage came from Yorkshire."

"My mother is Irish, and we live in Ireland now. I was born there. But
father, none the less, was John Armytage's brother."

He looked at her with increased interest, marking the straight, supple
lines of her, and the handsome, high-bred face. His lordship, remember,
never lacked an appreciative eye for a fine woman. "So you're Jack
Armytage's niece. Give me news of him, my dear."

She did so. Jack Armytage was well and prospering, had made a
rich marriage and retired from the Blues many years ago to live at
Northampton. He listened with interest, and thus out of his boyhood
friendship for her uncle, which of late years he had had no opportunity
to express, sprang there and then a kindness for the niece. Her own
personal charms may have contributed to it, for the great soldier was
intensely responsive to the appeal of beauty.

They reached the terrace. Lady O'Moy was nowhere in sight. But Lord
Wellington was too much engrossed in his discovery to be troubled.

"My dear," he said, "if I can serve you at any timer both for Jack's
sake and your own, I hope that you will let me know of it."

She looked at him a moment, and he saw her colour come and go, arguing a
sudden agitation.

"You tempt me, sir," she said, with a wistful smile.

"Then yield to the temptation, child," he urged her kindly, those keen,
penetrating eyes of his perceiving trouble here.

"It isn't for myself," she responded. "Yet there is something I would
ask you if I dare--something I had intended to ask you in any case if I
could find the opportunity. To be frank, that is why I was waiting there
in the garden just now. It was to waylay you. I hoped for a word with
you."

"Well, well," he encouraged her. "It should be the easier now, since in
a sense we find that we are old friends."

He was so kind, so gentle, despite that stern, strong face of his, that
she melted at once to his persuasion.

"It is about Lieutenant Richard Butler," she began.

"Ah," said he lightly, "I feared as much when you said it was not for
yourself you had a favour to ask."

But, looking at him, she instantly perceived how he had misunderstood
her.

"Mr. Butler," she said, "is the officer who was guilty of the affair at
Tavora."

He knit his brow in thought. "Butler-Tavora?" he muttered questioningly.
Suddenly his memory found what it was seeking. "Oh yes, the violated
nunnery." His thin lips tightened; the sternness of his ace i