At last John seemed to have come to a very difficult part of his narration; he got up from his chair and walked rapidly up and down the room, then forced himself to sit down again and resume his original calm.
"I am going to trust you, Denzil, with something which matters far more than my life." John looked Denzil straight in the eyes. "And I will confide in you because you are next in the direct line. Listen very carefully, please, it concerns your honour in the family as well as mine. It would be too infamous to let Ardayre go to the bastard, Ferdinand, the snake-charmer's son, if, as is quite possible, I shall be killed in the coming time."
Denzil felt some strange excitement permeating him. What did these words portend? Beads of perspiration appeared on John's forehead, and his voice sunk so low that his cousin bent forward to be certain of hearing him.
Then John spoke in broken sentences, for the first time in his life letting another share the thoughts which tortured him, but the time was not for reticence. Denzil must understand everything so that he would consent to a certain plan. At length, all that was in John's heart had been made plain, and exhausted with the effort of his innermost being's unburdenment, he sank back in his chair, deadly pale. The quiet, waiting attitude in Denzil had given way to keenness, and more than once as he listened to the moving narration he had emitted words of sympathy and concern, but when the actual plan which John had evolved was unfolded to him, and the part he was to play explained, he rose from his chair and stood leaning on the high mantelpiece, an expression of excitement and illumination on his strong, good-looking face.
"Do not say anything for a little," John said. "Think over everything quietly. I am not asking you to do anything dishonourable—and however much I had hated his mother I would not ask this of you if Ferdinand were my father's son. You are the next real heir—Ferdinand could not be; my father had never met the woman until a month before he married her, and the baby arrived five months afterwards, at its full time. There was no question of incubators or difficulties and special precautions to rear him, nor was there any suggestion that he was a seven months' child. It was only after years that I found out when my father first saw the woman, but even before this proof there were many and convincing evidences that Ferdinand was no Ardayre."
"One has only to look at the beast!" cried Denzil. "If the mother was a Bulgarian, he's a mongrel Turk, there is not a trace of English blood in his body!"
"Then surely you agree with me that it would be an infamy if he should take the place of the head of the family, should I not survive?"
Denzil clenched his hands.
"There is no moral question attached, remember," John went on anxiously before he could reply. "There is only the question of the law, which has been tricked and defamed by my father, for the meanest ends of revenge towards me—and now we—you and I—have the right to save the family and its honour and circumvent the perfidy and weakness of that one man. Oh!—can't you understand what this means to me, since for this trust of Ardayre that I feel I must faithfully carry on, I am willing to—Oh!—my God, I can't say it. Denzil, answer me—tell me that you look at it in the same way as I do! You are of the family. It is your blood which Ferdinand would depose—the disgrace would be yours then, since if Ferdinand reigned I would have gone."
The two men were standing opposite one another, and both their faces were pale and stern, but Denzil's blue eyes were blazing with some wonderful new emotion, as they looked at John.