"But there is nothing for you to fear. Whatever were to happen you would be quite safe," argued Guy.
"Myself? It is not myself I am thinking about," she cried passionately. "Whatever impends does not threaten me. It is you, Guy, I fear for. Ever since the night of Lady Greyston's dance I have felt it. I thought you would never return that evening, but you came back, and for a while I could laugh at my fears. But, now the Commandatore has some other proposal to make, my dread has returned. I shall not have a moment's rest."
"Why this is sheer hysteria, if not madness," said Guy in great concern.
"Call it what you like," she replied earnestly, "but listen to what I say—promise me!"
She heard Hora's lagging footstep in the passage outside, and she ceased speaking suddenly. "Not a word of this to the Commandatore," she said hastily, as the door opened, and Hora re-entered.
If the elder man observed that his re-entry had broken in upon a confidence from which he was excluded, he gave no signs of having done so. Myra breathed more freely when he seated himself again at the table, and spread out a newspaper he had brought with him on the table.
"There are three items of news in this evening's paper," he remarked quietly, "which supply the data from which may be deduced the means whereby an enterprising man may build a fortune."
Guy was all attention on the instant, and Myra, viewing his keen face, let her head droop upon her hand.
"Those items are?" queried the young man, as Hora paused.
"You will find the first in the Court News," was the reply. "The Rt. Hon. Sir Gadsby Dimbleby, who is the minister in attendance upon His Majesty the King, arrived at Sandringham last night."