The Viking's Skull

by John R. Carling

"Idris!" said the viscount quickly. "Is his name Idris?"

"Yes, why?"

"O, nothing. It's an uncommon name, that's all." With a half-laugh, he added, more to himself than to Lorelie: "Idris Breakspear. Humph! Now if it were Idris Marville!"

It was now Lorelie's turn to be surprised. Till this moment she had been unaware that the name of Idris Marville was known to her husband.

"But, Ivar," she answered quietly, "Marville, and not Breakspear, happens to be his true name."

Lord Walden stopped short in his smoking, took the cigarette from his lips, and stared open-mouthed at Lorelie with a look very much like fear upon his face.

"What do you say?" he muttered hoarsely. "Idris Marville. But, bah!" he continued, an expression of relief clearing his features: "that can't be the fellow I have in mind. My Idris Marville died at Paris seven years ago."

"And so did he—in the newspapers. For a reason of his own he let the world think that he had perished in a hotel-fire."

At this statement Ivar's agitation became extreme. The cigarette dropped from his fingers; his face became livid.