Too assured of their friendship for resentment or to attribute the speech to anything except interest in his affairs, Allard smiled even while changing color with pain.
"I have you always, monseigneur," he said. "If I have lost other loves, at least I can rest content with you."
The paper-knife snapped in Stanief's grasp.
"Thank you," he responded, with an accent worthy of his cousin. "I believe I asked you to explain."
The unconscious Allard pushed the bright hair from his forehead, his eyes on the ruddy unrest of the flames.
"Of course I meant to tell you some time, monseigneur," he mused aloud. "But it seemed a bit cowardly to burden you with my troubles; you could not help them, and you have so many of your own. It was no time to speak of such a thing during your wedding, and as the weeks went by it grew harder and harder to speak of it at all. I tried not to betray myself, but I am rather a bad actor. If it were only I who suffered. The journey to Spain, for madame—"
He paused. Stanief gazed at him with an expression as somberly dangerous as ever one of his dangerous house wore.
"The journey to Spain, monsieur?" he repeated.
Aroused at last to a strangeness in his manner, Allard turned to him in wonder.
"During the journey to Spain, monseigneur, this came for me," he replied simply, and drew forth a letter which he laid before the other.