"He stared at me, Bassett, like a man dismayed, and his hand trembled so that spots of grease were shaken from the candles on to the floor. 'How can you know of the Duc's door?' he whispered, watching me all the time as if fascinated. 'How can you know of the Duc's door, monsieur?' His fear, his consternation, were so evident, that I recognised the necessity of reassuring him in order to learn more. Therefore, 'I have heard of it, or seen it depicted, somewhere in England,' I replied; 'but the story associated with it escapes my memory.'
"He began to look less frightened as I spoke, and finally, having several times moistened his dry lips, he replied. 'It has been walled up for more than two hundred years. It opened upon a staircase leading to the State apartments.' 'And why was it closed, my friend?' I asked. The old man shrugged his angular shoulders and moved on out of the room. 'That I cannot say, monsieur,' he answered: 'but in the reign of Louis XIII, Henri, second Duc de Montmorency, by whose father this chateau was built, escaped one night from the apartment in which he had been imprisoned under sentence of death, and attempted to force his way into the presence of the King, then lying in the chateau. At the foot of those stairs the Duc was mortally wounded by Guitry, Captain of the Bodyguard....'"
During lunch the conversation rarely became general. Bassett talked to Yvonne, bestowing upon her an elderly admiration which was not lacking in a poetry of its own, and Paul exchanged memories with Thessaly. His mental excitement was tremendous, and contagious, but of the three who listened to him Thessaly alone seemed to respond sympathetically. Bassett had never pretended to understand his distinguished client. He was always covertly watching Paul, his fat face wrinkled with perplexity, as though one day he hoped for a revelation by light of which he might grasp the clue to a personality that eluded him entirely.
"That boasted civilisation," said Paul—"the German Kultur—has thrown us back to the earliest savagery of which we hold record. All that education has done for us is to hold the savage in check for a time. He is still there. Spiritually humanity's record is one of retrogression."
Luncheon over, Paul accompanied Thessaly and Bassett to the latticed gate in the high monastic wall which concealed his house from the road. They walked away together and he stood for a time gazing after them, then returned and went to his study. Yvonne, who had watched him from the dining-room window, heard the study door close. She sat quite still looking across the table at a chair which Paul had occupied, her fair hair a crown about her brow as the wintry sunlight shone in upon it. Chelsea sometimes may seem as quiet as a lonely riverside village, and at the moment which followed the sound of the closing door it seemed to have become so to Yvonne. Only that muted droning which arises from the vast hive of London told of four millions of workers moving intimately about her. The house was perfectly still. Odin, Paul's wolf-hound, tugged at his chain in the garden and whined quaveringly. He had heard Paul arrive and was disappointed because his master had forgotten to pay him a visit. He was angry, too, because he also had heard the deep voice of Jules Thessaly; and Odin did not like Jules Thessaly.
A quantity of personal correspondence had accumulated, and Paul proceeded to inspect it. A letter addressed in Don's familiar sprawling hand demanded precedence, and Paul noted with excitement that it bore a Derbyshire postmark. It was dated from the house of one of Don's innumerable cousins, a house of a type for which the Peak district is notable, a manor of ghostly repute. This cheerful homestead was apparently constructed in or adjoining an ancient burial ground, was in fact a converted monastery, and Don dealt in characteristically whimsical fashion with its unpleasant peculiarities.
"One can scarcely expect a house constructed in a graveyard," he wrote, "to be otherwise than a haunted house. It is a house especially built for a ghost; it is not a house to which a ghost has come; it is a ghost around whom a house has been built. Erratic manifestations are to be looked for from a hitherto free and unfettered spectre who discovers himself to be confined in a residence possibly uncongenial to his taste and to have thrust upon him the society of a family with whose habits and ideals he has nothing in common...."
Finally, Don inquired how the affairs of Flamby were proceeding, and something very like a pang of remorse troubled Paul. The open letter lying before him, he fell into a reverie, arraigning himself before the tribunal of his own conscience. Had his attitude toward Flamby changed? It had done so. What was the nature of the change? His keen personal interest had given place to one impersonal, although sincere in its way. What was the explanation of this? He had enshrined her, set her upon a fairy pedestal, only to learn that she was humanly frail. Had this discovery hurt him? Intensely. How and why? It had shattered his belief in his omniscience. Yes, that was the unpalatable truth, brought to light at last. Frailty in woman he looked for, and because he knew it to be an offshoot of that Eternal Feminine which is a root-principle of the universe, he condoned. But in Flamby he had seemed to recognise a rare spirit, one loftily above the common traits of her sex, a fit companion for Yvonne; and had been in error. For long after the finding of those shameful photographs he had failed to recover confidence in himself, and had doubted his fitness to speak as a master who could be blinded by the guile of a girl.
It was, then, offended amour propre which had prompted him to hand over to Nevin, his solicitor, this sacred charge entrusted to him by Don? It was. Now he scourged himself remorselessly. If only because her fault was chargeable on one of his own kin he should have striven with might and main to help Flamby. The fact that she was daughter of the man who had saved Don's life at peril of his own redoubled the sanctity of the charge. And how had he acquitted himself of his stewardship? Pitifully. A hot flush rose to his brow, and he hesitated to open a letter from Nevin which also awaited his attention. But he forced himself to the task and read that which completed his humility. Mrs. Duveen had died of heart-failure two months before, whilst Paul had been abroad, and Flamby was an orphan.
"Captain Courtier, who is at present home on leave, has favoured us with direct instructions in the matter," Nevin continued, "and has placed a generous credit at our disposal for the purpose of securing suitable apartments for Miss Duveen, and for meeting the cost of her immediate maintenance and fees, together with other incidental disbursements. We have also secured authority to watch her interests in regard to any pension or gratuity to which she may be entitled as a minor and orphan of a non-commissioned officer killed in action...."