"WHAT FACE THAT HAUNTS ME?"
After that all hope was given up of discovering who had murdered Douglas. From the first, from the moment Bertie saw the jewels taken from the two vagabonds by the sergeant, he felt that neither of them were the culprits. Yet, all asked each other whenever they met, "If not these scoundrels, who then?"
"He had no enemy in France, in the world," said Bertie, as they sat one night in the lodgings which Kate had hired for her father and herself. "Why, why should any creature have taken his life? In his regiment he was most popular--nay, beloved. Oh! oh! I cannot understand it."
And now, since, as has been said, the summer was waning--for Douglas had been dead three months when they talked thus--their little circle was about to be broken up once more. One was gone for ever, they said in whispered tones, he could never come back; could those who still remained be once more united after they separated at Amiens?
Bertie, with his troop and one other of the Regiment of Picardy, was to proceed to St. Denis; Kate and her father were to go to Paris; Archibald was to remain behind at Amiens.
Over the latter a great change had come since his brother's death. He had always been a quiet and reserved man--perhaps from the very nature of his calling--one who never said more than was absolutely necessary to any person on any subject; now he seemed to have retired entirely within himself and to have but two things in this world to which his life was devoted: his Faith, and his determination to find the murderer of Douglas.
"And," he said to Bertie, "I shall do it. Have no fear of that. I shall do it. I have now an idea--though an idea of so strange, so extraordinary a nature, that I hardly dare to let myself believe that it can ever take a tangible shape."
"And may I, may Kate, know nothing of that idea? Remember how we both loved him."
"No," Sholto replied. "No. It may come to nothing--must, it almost seems certain, come to nothing. Yet, if the secret can be unravelled, I will find the way to do it. Then, when I am sure, if ever I am, you shall know all. Nay, you will most assuredly know all."
"Will you tell us--tell me--no more than this?" asked Bertie.