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Updated: July 18, 2025
Ducaine," he said, "you must see for yourself that I am running a very serious risk in making these plans with you behind the backs of the Duke of Rowchester and Colonel Ray. The Duke is a man of the keenest sense of honour, as his recent commercial transactions have shown. He has parted with a hundred thousand pounds rather than that the shadow of a stigma should rest upon his name.
"One season is very much like another," she said, "but it is not possible to absent oneself altogether. Then afterwards there is Cowes and Homburg, and I always have a plan for at least three weeks in Scotland. I believe we shall close Rowchester altogether." "The Duke?" I asked. "He never spends the summer here," she answered.
I rose obediently. I think that if I had not been there my father would have struck her. He was almost speechless with fury. He poured himself out another glass of brandy with shaking fingers. "Thank you," I said to her, simply. "I do not think that these papers are worth five thousand. Let me tell you what I came here for. I am a messenger from the Duke of Rowchester."
There was something in her mind which she shrank from putting into words. Did she believe that I was responsible for this grim tragedy which had so suddenly thrown its shadow over my humdrum little life? At a quarter-past three that afternoon I was ushered into the presence of the Duke of Rowchester. I had never seen him before, and his personality at once interested me.
Coming out of the post office I found myself face to face with Blanche Moyat. She held out her hand eagerly. "Were you coming in?" she asked. "Well, not to-day," I answered. "I am on my way to Rowchester, and I am late already." She kept by my side. "Come in for a few moments," she begged, in a low tone. "I want to talk to you." "Not the old subject, I hope," I remarked.
"Yes," I answered. "I have a note for you from his Grace, sir," he said. "I was to take back an answer if I found you at home." He handed it to me, and I tore it open. It contained only a few lines, in a large sprawling hand-writing. "ROWCHESTER, Wednesday Morning. "The Duke of Rowchester presents his compliments to Mr.
Rowchester was a curious medley of a house, a mixture of farmhouse, mansion, and castle, added to apparently in every generation by men with varying ideas of architecture. The front was low and irregular, and a grey stone terrace ran the entire length, with several rows of steps leading down into the garden.
You are here because the more private meetings of the English Council of Defence are being held at Rowchester.
"The particular documents of which we have news from Paris," Lord Chelsford continued, "are those having reference to the proposed camp at Winchester and the subway at Portsmouth. I understand, Mr. Ducaine, that these were drafted by you, and placed in a safe in the library of Rowchester on the evening of the eighteenth of this month." "That is so, sir," I answered.
I was not in the least offended. The Duke's manner throughout, and the framing of his questions, had been too tactful to awaken any resentment. But I had no fancy for exposing my ill-luck and friendless state to any one. I was democrat enough to feel that a cross-examination which would have been impertinent in anybody else was becoming a little too personal even from the Duke of Rowchester.
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