The words were uttered with a grim coldness that caused Walter to shiver. This was worse than any outbreak of fury, worse than homicidal mania in its most acute form. The man was sane enough beyond all doubt, but, at the same time, he was a fanatic, prepared to gratify his vengeance, even if his own life paid the penalty.

"Well, that is candid, at any rate," Walter said. "You came here prepared to take my uncle\'s life. It was the second attempt that you made upon it. Oh, you know what I mean. You mistook a guest who was coming here for Lord Ravenspur."

"That was a mistake," Silva said coolly. "It was a mistake that I realised just in time. I should have greatly regretted any harm happening to an innocent party."

"I suppose it would have quite upset you," Walter said sarcastically. "But we are wandering from the point. What is the grudge you have against my uncle? You have never even seen him till quite lately. He has been an utter stranger to you."

A contemptuous smile flickered over Silva\'s face.

"I don\'t suppose I shall be able to make you understand," he said. "Your race is different to mine. The blood in your veins flows much slower and colder. You have no traditions in this country which are part of your religion. You cannot comprehend that it is one\'s duty to avenge insult and outrage, even at the cost of a life. In my part of the world a man would be held a coward who hesitated to retrieve his honour in such a fashion. But in this case it was not my honour, but the honour of the noble house to which I belonged. It would have been bad enough if the thing had been done by one of my own countrymen, but a stranger, like Lord Ravenspur----"

"I fail to see the distinction," Walter murmured.

"Ah, that is because you cannot understand. Look you here, signor. I have a mistress to whom I am devotedly attached. I would lay down my life for her. I would do anything to shield her from pain. Let us say that my mistress is married to a man who outwardly possesses all the graces that Nature can bestow. He has the intellectual gifts, too. He is widely beloved and popular wherever he goes. But at heart he is a fiend. The refined cruelties which he uses towards his wife arouse revengeful feelings in my breast, though I dare not gratify them, in case I perish, and leave my beloved mistress in a worse case than ever. But there are others of my clan also serving the noble house from which my mistress came, and they write the Count the letter. You don\'t know what that means, and I am not going to tell you. But it is the death-warrant, and the Count knows it. He cannot appeal against that. All the forces of the Crown cannot save his life. And then, mysteriously, he dies. But he does not die before he has done one last piece of irreparable mischief. He sees a way to strike his wife to the heart from the other side of the grave. There is a child, perhaps the only thing on earth that the Count loves purely and sincerely. He gets his friend, Lord Ravenspur, to kidnap that child. I tell you if his lordship had come amongst us and dishonoured the threshold of the greatest chief in South Italy he could not have unlocked the floodgates of vengeance in a more thorough manner. Think of the degradation, the bitter insult of it all! If the true facts of the case had been known to me at the time, Lord Ravenspur would have been a dead man years ago. But when my mistress vanished from the world, I naturally thought that she had taken the child with her. I did not know until quite recently what had happened. Then when I cast my mind back to the past I had no difficulty in fixing upon Lord Ravenspur as the culprit. The rest you know."

The words were quietly and evenly spoken, but the deep ring of sincerity in them was not lost upon Walter Lance. Here was a man who saw his way clearly before him, a man blinded by prejudice and bigotry, who would not hesitate for a single moment, who would laugh contemptuously at the mere suggestion of personal danger.

"What could you do afterwards?" Walter urged.

Silva shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.

"Why go into that?" he said. "The honour of the house would be avenged. I should have done my duty, and have earned the approbation of my friends. There would be a great outcry, no doubt. The thing would be inquired into, and probably the child I speak of would have been restored to her mother, though, to be sure, I am not quite certain whether the Countess is a proper person----"

"So you have your doubts on that score?" Walter cried eagerly. "Now is it not a fact that the Countess Flavio was notoriously a woman of evil disposition?"

"Everybody said so," Silva replied. "Had I chosen, I might have thrown a different light upon it. Mind you, I am not pleased with my late mistre............