As they walked back to the town Hugh's heart sank within him.
"She will die," he muttered bitterly to himself. "She'll die, and I shall never learn the truth of the poor guv'nor's sad end, or the reason why I am being forced to marry Louise Lambert."
"It's an iniquitous will, Hugh!" declared his friend. "And it's infernally hard on you that just at the very moment when you could have learnt the truth that shot was fired."
"Do you think the woman had any hand in my father's death?" Hugh asked. "Do you think that she had repented, and was about to try and atone for what she had done by confessing the whole affair?"
"Yes. That is just the view I take," answered Brock. "Of course, we have no idea what part she played in the business. But my idea is that she alone knows the reason why this marriage with Louise is being forced upon you."
"In that case, then, it seems more than likely that I've been followed here to Monte Carlo, and my movements watched. But why has she been shot? Why did not her enemies shoot me? They could have done so twenty times during the past few days. Perhaps the shot which hit her was really intended for me?"
"I don't think so. There is a monetary motive behind your marriage with Louise. If you died, your enemy would gain nothing. That seems clear."
"But who can be my secret enemy?" asked the young man in dismay.
"Mademoiselle alone knows that, and it was undoubtedly her intention to warn you."
"Yes. But if she dies I shall remain in ignorance," he declared in a hard voice. "The whole affair is so tangled that I can see nothing clearly--only that my refusal to marry Louise will mean ruin to me--and I shall lose Dorise in the bargain!"
Walter Brock, older and more experienced, was equally mystified. The pessimistic attitude of the three doctors who had attended the injured woman was, indeed, far from reassuring. The injury to the head caused by the assailant's bullet was, they declared, most dangerous. Indeed, the three medical men marvelled that she still lived.
The two men walked through the palm-lined garden, bright with flowers, back to their hotel, wondering whether news of the tragedy had yet got abroad. But they heard nothing of it, and it seemed true, as Walter Brock had declared, that the police make haste to suppress any tragic happenings in the Principality.
Though they were unconscious of it, a middle-aged, well-dressed Frenchman had, during their absence from the hotel, been making diligent inquiries regarding them of the night concierge and some of the staff.