two, and
took his daughter down there to live. That's the man, isn't it?"

"Yes, that's the man. He's worth something like half a million sterling
to-day--lucky beggar."

"Then why do you allude to his daughter and heiress as an 'unhappy young
lady'? Surely with unlimited wealth at her command----"

"Which I dare say she would gladly give up to get back other things that
she has lost," interposed Mr. Narkom. "Her hopes of becoming young Geoff
Clavering's wife for one!"

"Young Geoff Clavering? The chap whose coming of age was celebrated
to-day?"

"Yes, the son and heir of my friend, Sir Philip Clavering, as fine a boy
as ever stood in shoe leather. He and Lady Katharine have almost grown
up together, as her uncle and aunt, General and Mrs. Raynor, are close
neighbours at Wuthering Grange. They were engaged at seventeen, a
regular idyllic love match, old chap. Sir Philip and Lady Clavering were
immensely fond of her and heartily approved the match. So apparently did
her father, to whom she wrote, although she had not seen him since she
was a baby. Even when he returned to England with a fortune big enough
to warrant his daughter wedding a duke, he still appeared to approve of
the engagement, and suggested that the wedding should be celebrated on
the young man's twenty-first birthday."

"Which, as to-day is that day, and you still speak of her as Lady
Katharine Fordham, I presume did not take place?"

"No, it did not. Some three months ago, a certain Count de Louvisan, an
Austrian, appeared on the scene, claiming acquaintance with St. Ulmer;
and it seems that after a subsequent interview, Lord St. Ulmer informed
his daughter that her engagement with Geoff Clavering must come to an
end, and that it was her father's intention that she should become the
wife of Count de Louvisan."

"Oho!" said Cleek, in two different tones. "All of which goes to suggest
that the count had some hold over the old gentleman and was using it to
feather his own nest. Of course the girl couldn't be compelled to marry
the man against her will, so if she consented to the breaking of the
engagement----Did she?"

"Yes."

"Then something must have been told her--something which was either a
lie or an appalling truth--to make her take a step like that, for a
woman does not break with the man she loves unless something more than
life is at stake. And it is this Count de Louvisan, you tell me, that
has been murdered? Hum-m-m!"

"Yes, the wo