I was only going
to ask you to do as much as Belknap, or less."
"Very well, then."
"I want you to promise to marry Grace Sheraton."
I laughed in his face. "I thought you knew me better than that, Orme.
I'll attend to my own matters for myself. I shall not even ask you why
you want so puerile a promise. I am much of a mind to shoot you. Tell
me, who are you, and what are you, and what are you doing in this
country?"
"Do you really want to know?" he smiled.
"Assuredly I do. I demand it."
"I believe I will tell you, then," he said quietly. He mused for a time
before he raised his head and went on.
"I am Charles Gordon Orme, Marquis of Bute and Rayne. Once I lived in
England. For good reasons I have since lived elsewhere. I am what is
known as a black sheep--a very, very black one."
"Yes, you are a retrograde, a renegade, a blackguard and a murderer," I
said to him, calmly.
"All of those things, and much more," he admitted, cheerfully and
calmly. "I am two persons, or more than two. I can't in the least make
all this plain to you in your grade of intelligence. Perhaps you have
heard of exchangeable personalities?"
"I have heard of double personalities, and double lives," I said, "but I
have never admired them.
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