The Earl grunted.
“You hear daily from Isobel?”
“Of course, but Isobel is a woman. She tells me what she is allowed to know. Because she is a woman, Guy and Moreno keep everything from her. They make out the path is strewn with roses. They will not tell her the truth, for fear of frightening her.”
“Then where are you going to get your information from?” asked the Earl querulously.
There was a long pause. When she spoke, a faint colour dyed Lady Mary’s cheek.
“I wonder if that young barrister would know anything; I almost forget his name—you remember, Isobel’s cousin who came down to Ticehurst and arranged her journey to Spain. Yes, I remember, Maurice Farquhar. He is a bosom friend of that Spanish man, Moreno, who, I fancy, is trying his best to defeat the anarchists.”
The Earl was, fortunately, very unobservant to-day.
“Yes, I remember him quite well, a perfectly decent sort of young fellow. A rather forlorn hope, eh?”
The flush had died away from Mary’s cheek. She had regained her self-control. She spoke quite calmly.
“Yes, I agree, but drowning people catch at a straw. Let me ask him to dinner, and find out if he knows anything.”