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Ian looked his nephew up and down with a cool kind of insolence as he passed, but did not make any salutation. Gaston went straight to the castle. He asked for his uncle, and was told that he had gone to Lady Belward. He wandered to the library: it was empty.
There were scores of tents, horses, and many Indians and half-breeds, and a few white men. My father was in command. I can see my mother's face as she stood over the fire. It was not darker than mine; she always seemed more French than Indian, and she was thought comely." Lady Belward shuddered a little, but Gaston did not notice. "I can remember the great buffalo-hunt.
"How?" In a few concise words he explained, scanning the other's face eagerly. Gaston showed nothing. He had passed the apogee of irritation. "A model?" he questioned drily. "Well, if you put it that way. 'Portrait' sounds better. It shall be Gaston Belward, gentleman; but we will call it in public, 'Monmouth the Trespasser." Gaston did not wince. He had taken all the revenge he needed.
The woman also for two days hung at the point of death, and then rallied. She remembered the events of the painful night, and often asked after Gaston. Somehow, her horror of her son's death at his hands was met by the injury done him now. She vaguely felt that there had been justice and punishment. She knew that in the room at Labrador Gaston Belward had been scarcely less mad than her son.
The journalist had found out Zoug-Zoug at last, and Ian Belward had talked with the manager of the menagerie. Andree shuddered and put the letter in her pocket. Now she understood why she had shrunk from Gaston that first night and those first days in Audierne: that strange sixth sense, divination vague, helpless prescience. And here, suddenly, she shrank again, but with a different thought.
The landlord was at Belward's elbow. "The gentleman on the box-seat be from Ridley Court. That's Maister Ian Belward, sir." Gaston Belward's eyes half closed, and a sombre look came, giving his face a handsome malice. He wound his fingers in his horse's mane, and put a foot in the stirrup. "Who is 'Maister Ian'?" "Maister Ian be Sir William's eldest, sir. On'y one that's left, sir.
At eight o'clock he appeared at Ridley Court, and bade his grandfather and grandmother good-bye. They were full of pride, and showed their affection in indirect ways Sir William most by offering his opinion on the Bill and quoting Gaston frequently; Lady Belward, by saying that next year she would certainly go up to town she had not done so for five years!
"Alice," he said, in a vague, half-troubled way, "the man is a Belward, I think." "Why, of course!" the girl replied with a flash of excitement. "But he's so dark, and foreign-looking! What Belward is he?" "I do not know yet, my dear." "I shall be up when you come back. But mind, don't leave just after dinner. Stay and talk; you must tell me everything that's said and done and about the stranger."
"You are Robert's son?" "Robert Belward was my father." "Your father is dead?" "Twelve years ago." Sir William sank back in his chair. His thin fingers ran back and forth along his lips. Presently he took out his handkerchief and coughed into it nervously. His lips trembled. With a preoccupied air he arranged a handful of papers on the table.
Then the picture had been discussed, and the girl's eyes had followed Gaston followed him until he had caught their glance. Without an introduction, he had come and dropped into conversation with her, till her mother cleverly interrupted. Inside the library Lady Belward was comfortably placed, and looking up at Gaston, said: "You have your father's ways: I hope that you will be wiser."
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