"Twenty-two years ago."
"Twenty-two years ago," murmured Lorelie, with the air of one making a mental calculation, "will take us back to 1876."
"October the thirteenth, 1876, if you wish for the exact date."
"And was it not on this same night of October the thirteenth, 1876, that your father the earl walked into Ravenhall after a mysterious absence of ten years?"
"What of that?"
"O nothing! Mere coincidence, of course. And so," continued Lorelie, with a retrospective air, "and so the foundering of the yacht Idris is another of the little matters about which your father has conversed with you. Strange that a peer of the realm should take such interest in the fate of an escaped felon!" She paused, as if expecting Ivar to make some reply, but he did not speak. "Well," she went on, "I will make the confession that I, too, take an interest—a strong interest—in this Eric Marville; nay, I will go so far as to say that to discover what ultimately became of him is one of the objects that has led me to Ormsby. And in pursuance of this object I have had the good fortune to obtain from its present editor a copy of The Ormsby Weekly Times, dated October 20th, 1876, in which paper there is given an account both of the foundering of the yacht and also of the inquest upon the bodies that were washed ashore. Now, as the coroner was unable to ascertain either the name of the vessel, or the names of any of the men aboard, is it not a little curious that the earl should know that the yacht was called Idris, and that it carried on board one Eric Marville? How comes your father to know more than could be elicited in the coroner's court?"
"Egad, you'd better ask him," returned Ivar sullenly.
"Well, I must controvert your father on one point. Eric Marville was not drowned. I have proof that he was on shore at the time the yacht sank."
The viscount was obviously startled by this statement.
"Oh! then what became of him?"