William Le Queux (continued 5)

Daily the aged statesman grew more gloomy and misanthropic. He lived alone, in an atmosphere of severe officialdom. His only recreation was a formal visit on rare occasions to a reception at one or other of the principal Embassies, or attendance on Her Majesty at Osborne or Balmoral; his brief, far-seeing suggestions at the Cabinet Council were always adopted unanimously, and his peremptory “notes” to the Powers incontrovertible marvels of diplomacy. He hated society, and never went anywhere without some strong motive by which he could further his country’s interests. His eccentricities were proverbial, his caustic observations on men and things the delight of leader-writers on Government journals; and as director of England’s foreign policy he was feared, yet admired, in every capital in Europe. He, however, cared not a jot for notoriety, but with an utter disregard for all else, served his country with a slavish devotion, that even the most scathing Opposition gutter-journal could not fail to recognise.

It was common talk that some strange, romantic incident had overshadowed his life, but with that innate secrecy that was part of his creed he never confided in anybody. Notwithstanding his frigid cynicism, however, he was nevertheless sympathetic, and at any mention of Ella’s name he would rivet his searching eyes upon me, while across the white brow, furrowed by the heavy responsibilities of State through so many years, would spread an expression of regret, anxiety or pain. But he spoke seldom upon that subject. That he regarded my marriage as a deplorable fiasco I was well aware, but felt that in his cold heart, hardened as it was by the artful subterfuges of successful diplomacy, there yet remained a spark of pity, for he still regarded me as his protégé.

On the day after Ella had fled I called at Andrew Beck’s office at Winchester House, Old Broad Street, but found he had sailed a few days before by the Union Liner Scot for Cape Town. Of late he had become connected with several South African gold ventures of enormous extent, and in the interests of some of the companies most prominently before the public, had undertaken the journey. His great wealth, in combination with that of his associates, had inspired public confidence, and there had commenced that feverish tendency in the city that quickly developed, and was later known as the “gold boom.” The movements of the popular member for West Rutlandshire were cabled and chronicled in the newspapers as diligently as if he were a prince of a reigning house, and it was with extreme satisfaction that one morning in June I saw it announced that the mail had arrived at Southampton from the Cape bearing him on board, the same paper printing an account of an interview regarding gold prospects in South Africa which he had given its representative before he left the steamer. I was down at Warnham at the time, but three days later returned to London, and that same night sought Beck at the House of Commons.

I found him in the Members’ Lobby, bustling about in his ill-fitting evening clothes and crumpled shirt-front, looking sun-tanned and well; a trifle more arrogant, perhaps, but nevertheless easy-going and good-natured as usual. He greeted me heartily, and the night being warm we lit cigars and walked out upon the Terrace beside the Thames. Big Ben was chiming the midnight hour. It was bright and star-lit above, but before us the river ran darkly beneath the arches of Westminster Bridge, its ripples glistening under the gas lamps. Across on the opposite bank, in the row of buildings comprising St Thomas’s Hospital, lights glimmered faintly in the windows of the wards, while here and there on the face of the black, silent highway, lights, white, red and green, shone out in silent warning.

As we set foot upon the long, deserted Terrace, strolling slowly forward in the balmy, refreshing night air, my thoughts wandered back to the last occasion when we had spent an evening together beside the Thames, that memorable night at “The Nook,” when we had afterwards discovered Dudley Ogle lying dead.

During the first half-hour we discussed the progress of several questions of foreign policy which had been pursued during his absence, and he, an enthusiast in politics, confided in me his intention to head a select circle of his party to demand a commission of inquiry into the working of our mobilisation scheme for home defence.

“One would think that you desired to obtain further notoriety,” I laughed. “Surely you are popular enough; you are now the man of the hour.”

“Well, I suppose I am,” he answered, a trifle proudly, halting suddenly, leaning with his back to the stone parapet and puffing vigorously at his cigar. “But it isn’t for the sake of notoriety that I’m pressing forward this inquiry. It is for the benefit of the country generally. The scheme for the mobilisation of our forces in case of invasion is utterly rotten, and had we been compelled to fight a little time ago, when France and Russia were upon the point of declaring war, we should have been in a wretched plight. The scheme is all very well on paper, but I and my friends are determined to ascertain whether it will act. It has never been tested, and no doubt it is utterly unworkable. What, indeed, can be said of a scheme which decrees that in case of an enemy landing on our shores a regiment of cavalry, now in London, must draw its horses from Dublin! Why, the thing’s absurd. We don’t mean to rest until the whole matter is thoroughly threshed out.”

“You intend to worry up the War Office a little,” I observed, smiling.

“Yes,” he answered, ostentatiously. “We intend to bring public opinion to bear so heavily upon them that they will be absolutely bound to submit to the inquiry. This is, however, a secret for the present. It is best that the newspapers should not get hold of it yet. You understand?”

“Of course,” I said.

We stood watching the dark, swirling waters and enjoying the cool night breeze that swept along the river, causing the lamps to flicker, when he suddenly asked,—“How is Ella? I quite forgot to ask after your wife.”

“I don’t know,” I replied, after a brief pause.

“Don’t know?” he echoed, looking at me, puzzled. “Why, what’s the matter?”

“She has left me,” I answered gravely.

“Left you!” he cried, removing his cigar and staring at me. “Have you quarrelled?”

“No. On my return home one night in January I found a note of farewell from her. I have heard nothing of her since. Mrs Laing disappeared on the same day.”

“Disappeared!” he gasped. My announcement had caused him the greatest consternation, for he stood agape. “Have you no idea of the reason?”

“None whatever,” I replied. Then confidentially I told him of Ella’s mysterious absences, her walk in Kensington Gardens, and her letters from the unknown individual who had met her so frequently, omitting, however, all mention either of the theft or recovery of the secret convention, for it was Lord Warnham’s wish that I should keep the existence of that instrument a profound secret.

“Have you no idea who this strange fellow is?” he inquired, sympathetically.

“Not the slightest,” I said.

“Ella was not addicted to flirtation,” he observed reflectively, a few moments later. “As you are aware, I have been acquainted with the family for some years, and have known your wife ever since she could toddle.”

“Tell me of them,” I urged impatiently. “I know scarcely anything beyond what Ella and her mother have told me. What do you know of Ella’s past?”

“You speak as if you suspected her to be an adventuress,” he said, and as the lamplight fell upon his face I saw that his lips relaxed into a good-humoured smile. “As far as I’m aware there is no incident of her life prior to marriage that will not bear the fullest investigation; and as for her mother, no more straightforward nor upright woman ever lived. Before poor Robert Laing died I was a frequent visitor at their country house, so I had ample opportunity of noticing what an affectionate family they were; and after his death it was I who succeeded in turning his great business into a limited liability concern.”

To outsiders Beck was a swaggering parvenu, who delighted in exhibiting his wealth to others by giving expensive dinners and indulging in extravagances of speech and beverage; but towards me he had always been honestly outspoken and unassuming—in fact, a typical successful business man, with whose unruffled good humour I had, even when madly jealous of his attentions to Ella, found it impossible to quarrel. I had long ago grown to ridicule the suggestion that any secret had existed between them, and now felt instinctively that he was my friend.

“Do you think—” I asked him, after a long pause. “Candidly speaking, have you any suspicion that Dudley Ogle was her lover?”

He knit his brows. For an instant a hard expression played about his mouth, and he drew a long breath.

“I didn’t, of course, know so much of Dudley as you did,” he answered, slowly contemplating the end of his cigar. “But to tell you the honest truth, I always suspected that he loved her. In fact her own evidence at the inquest was sufficient proof of that.”

“His death was an enigma,” I observed.

“Entirely so,” he acquiesced, sighing.

“She alleged that he had been murdered, and there is no room for doubt that she entertained certain very grave suspicions.”

“Of what?”

“Of the identity of the murderer,” I said. “She declared to me, times without number, that she would never rest until she had unravelled the mystery.”

“Her theory was a very wild one,” he laughed. “Personally, I do not entertain it for one moment. The medical opinion that he died from a sudden but natural cause is undoubtedly correct,” he said, replacing his dead cigar between his lips, as, slowly striking a vesta, he re-lit it. Then he added, “Her anxiety to avenge Dudley’s death certainly seems to bear out your suspicion that they were lovers.”

“Then you entirely agree with me?” I cried.

“In a measure only,” he answered, his voice suddenly harsh and cold. “I have no suspicion that she ever reciprocated his affection, although in seeking to learn the truth of your friend’s tragic end she must have had some very strong motive.”

“Another fact I also discovered was a trifle curious,” I observed, after we had strolled along the deserted Terrace from end to end, discussing the details of Dudley’s death, and the manner in which it had affected her.

“What was it?” he inquired, glancing towards me.

“I found that she was in the habit of visiting every day a pretty Russian girl with whom I was acquainted.”

“Before marriage?” he asked, raising his eyebrows meaningly.

“Yes,” I answered. “She was a refugee, and I had been enabled to render her father a service some time before; therefore we had become friends. I had lost sight of her for a long time, and when I again met her I discovered that she had not only been an intimate friend of poor Dudley, but that Ella visited her frequently on her bicycle when she was supposed by her mother to be riding in the Park.”

“Was there anything remarkable in that fact?” he inquired, with a half-amused air, nevertheless regarding me with undue keenness, I thought.

“Nothing, except that the little Russian, who, having lost her father, was living a lonely life in a rather large house in Kensington, warned me against Ella, telling me she was my enemy. She, however, left without fulfilling her promise to reveal the details.”

“Your enemy!” he cried, laughing jocosely. “She was evidently jealous of your attentions to her, my boy. A Russian, too! She was a Nihilist, I suppose, or some interestingly romantic person of that sort, eh? Surely you didn’t heed what she said, did you?”

“Of course not,” I replied, with a forced laugh. “I loved Ella too well; so I married her.”

“And you now regret it,” he added abruptly.

Without replying I walked on by his side, smoking furiously. My object in seeking him had been to learn what I could of Ella’s past, but no mysterious incident had, to his knowledge, occurred. Her family were well-known in Yorkshire, respected throughout the county, and no breath of scandal had ever besmirched the fair fame of either Robert Laing’s widow or his daughter. Beck, their intimate friend, concealed nothing from me, but frankly discussed my hopes and fears, expressing his heartfelt sympathy that I should have thus mysteriously lost my well-beloved, and offering me all the assistance that lay in his power.

“It certainly is extremely curious that Mrs Laing should have left Pont Street without sending me a letter to the club, giving me her new address,” he said calmly, after reflection.

“You have not, then, heard from her?”

“No, I have had no letter. A week before I left for South Africa I dined there, and she then told me that she intended to remain in England throughout the year. She expressed the greatest gratification that Ella had married so happily, and seemed in the best of spirits. Yet a few days later, it appears, she fled as secretly as if she had been a criminal. It is really very extraordinary; I can’t account for it in the least.”

“All effort to trace Ella has failed,” I observed gloomily, after a moment’s reflection.

“Whose aid have you sought? A private inquiry agent?”

“No. The police,” I answered.

“Police!” he exclaimed, surprised. “They have committed no crime, surely. I—I mean that the police do not trace missing friends.”

“They will carry out the orders of any Government Department,” I answered. “The request came from my chief.”

“From Lord Warnham! Then you have told him!”

“Of course,” I responded.

In contemplative silence he slowly blew a great cloud of smoke from his lips. Then he said, “There is one thing you haven’t told me, Geoffrey. What was the name of this pretty Russian who made these mysterious allegations against Ella?”

“Her name was Sonia Korolénko.”

“Sonia Korolénko!” he cried in a voice strangely hoarse, halting and glaring at me with wide-open, staring eyes. “Sonia! And she has gone, you say?”

“Yes. She has returned to Russia, I believe. But what do you know of her?” I quickly inquired.

“Nothing. I merely know her by repute as a notorious woman, that’s all,” he answered. “You were certainly wise to discard her allegations.”

“Is she such a well-known person?” I asked.

“I should rather think so,” he answered, elevating his eyebrows. “Her fame has spread all over the Continent. She was leader of a certain circle of questionable society in Vienna a year ago, and narrowly escaped falling into the hands of the police.”

“But what can have induced Ella to associate with her?” I exclaimed in wonderment.

“Ah! That is more than we can tell,” he answered, in a tone of sincere regret. “The ways of women of her type are ofttimes utterly incomprehensible.”

“Were you aware that Ella was acquainted with her?” I inquired earnestly.

At that moment, however, the electric gongs along the Terrace commenced ringing sharply, announcing that the House was about to divide. The division was upon an important amendment, and had been expected at any moment since the dinner-hour. Turning back quickly he hurried through the tea-room along the corridor, and shaking hands with me in haste, promising to resume our conversation on another occasion, disappeared to record his vote.

For a single instant I stood alone in the Lobby, watching the receding figure of the portly man of the hour, and pondering deeply. Then, full of gloomy recollections of the past, I turned on my heel and went out through the long, echoing hall.

Chapter Twenty Six.

A Mission and its Sequel.

“You fully understand the position, Deedes?”

“Absolutely,” I replied.

“Well, this is your first mission abroad—a secret one and most important—so do your best, and let me see how you shape towards being a diplomatist. Remember you have one main object to bear in mind, as I have already told you; and further, that the strictest secrecy is absolutely necessary.”

It was the Earl of Warnham who thus spoke gravely as we stood opposite one another in the private room of the Minister in attendance at Osborne. Between us was a large table littered with state documents, each of which Her Majesty had carefully investigated before appending her firm, well-written signature. Late on the previous night I had travelled to the Isle of Wight in response to a telegram summoning me and my chief, who, after three rather protracted audiences of Her Majesty during the morning, had instructed me to proceed at once to Paris, entrusting me with a secret mission. Lord Gaysford, the Under Secretary, would undoubtedly have gone, but as he was away in Scotland attending some election meetings, and as time was pressing, I had, much to my gratification, been chosen. My mission was a rather curious one, not unconnected with Her Majesty’s personal affairs, and the instructions I had to deliver to the Marquis of Worthorpe, our Ambassador to the French Republic, were of such a delicate nature that if written in a formal dispatch would, the Earl feared, cause that skilled and highly-valued diplomatist to send in his resignation.

I had therefore been chosen to put a suggestion politely to his Excellency, and at the same time deliver the Earl’s instructions with deference, yet so firmly that they could not be disregarded. Mine was certainly a difficult task, nevertheless in my enthusiasm at being chosen to execute this secret mission abroad I was prepared to attempt anything, from the settlement of the Egyptian Question to the formation of a Quadruple Alliance.

“I shall carry out your instructions to the best of my ability,” I assured him, after he had given me various valuable hints how to act.

“Yes,” the aged Minister said, slowly gathering the tails of his black broadcloth frock coat over his arms and thrusting his hands into his pockets, “cross from Newhaven to-night, and you can see Worthorpe at noon to-morrow. Tell him to give you an interview alone; then explain what I have told you. He must obtain an audience of the President some time to-morrow.”

“I shall act as discreetly as possible,” I declared.

“I feel sure you will, Deedes,” he exclaimed, with a look more kindly than usual. “This mission will, I hope, lead to others, further afield, perhaps. But remember that you were once victimised by a spy; therefore exercise the greatest care and caution in this and all matters.”

“I certainly shall,” I answered, smiling; then, after the further discussion of a point upon which I was not perfectly clear, I wished my chief adieu.

As I passed out of the room he said,—

“Put up at the Continental. If I have any further instructions, I’ll wire in cypher.”

“Very well,” I replied, and as I went forth I met on the threshold a servant in the royal livery who had come to summon the trusted Minister to another audience with his Sovereign.

Eager to fulfil my mission to the satisfaction of the eccentric old statesman, who, if to others was a martinet, was to me a firm and sympathetic friend, I at once set out, crossed to Dieppe that night, and duly arrived in Paris next day. Shortly before noon I presented myself at the handsome official residence of the British Ambassador, and was quickly ushered into his presence. We were not strangers, having met on several occasions when he visited London and called to consult the chief; therefore he welcomed me cordially when I entered his private room. The Marquis was a tall, brown-bearded, pleasant-faced man, who had graduated in the Constantinople and Vienna schools of diplomacy before being appointed Ambassador in Paris, and who had achieved considerable reputation as a skilled negotiator of the most delicate points.

Seated opposite one another in softly-padded armchairs, we chatted affably for perhaps a quarter of an hour. First, he inquired after our chief’s health, and then endeavoured to ascertain from me the policy about to be pursued towards Russia in view of our recent strained relations, but I strenuously avoided answering any of his artfully-concealed questions. A dozen times, with that consummate tact acquired by a lifetime of diplomacy, he endeavoured to get me to hazard an opinion or express a doubt, but I always refused. Lord Warnham’s instructions were that I should say nothing of those affairs of State which, in my capacity of private secretary, were well-known to me, hence my determination to maintain silence.

Presently the Marquis smilingly exclaimed, “Lord Warnham has evidently taught you the first requisite of the successful diplomatist—namely, secrecy. You’ve borne well the test I have applied, Deedes. By the same questions I have just put to you I could have learnt just what I wanted from half the diplomatic circle here in Paris, yet you have fenced with me admirably. I shall not omit to mention the fact to Lord Warnham when next I call at the Foreign Office.”

I thanked his Excellency, adding, with a smile, “One learns the value of silence with our chief.”

“Yes,” he answered, slowly tapping his table with a quill. “He’s a curious man, extremely curious. His very eccentricity causes him to be feared by every Cabinet in Europe. Is he really as impetuous and strange in private life as he is in public?”

I paused, looking fixedly into my companions dark eyes.

“The object of my visit, your Excellency, is not to discuss the merits of my chief or the policy of the Home Government, but to make a suggestion which he has desired me to place before you with all deference to your wide experience as Ambassador, and your unequalled knowledge of the French people,” I said gravely, and then, clearly and succinctly, I placed before him the Earl’s ideas, together with the instructions he had entrusted me to deliver.

At first the Ambassador, resenting my interference with his actions, seemed disinclined to entertain the suggestions; but using the arguments my chief had advanced, I at length induced him to view the matter from the same standpoint. I even obtained from him what was practically an admission that the policy he had pursued in the past regarding the question under discussion was not altogether sound, and once having obtained that, I felt confident of gaining my point without any unpleasant incident. From that moment, indeed, he recognised that I bore a message from the chief, therefore he treated me pleasantly, and announced his intention of seeking an audience with the President of the Republic at the Elysée at four o’clock, to enter upon negotiations which Her Majesty earnestly desired should be carried forward without delay.

Although the Marquis treated me with calm, unruffled dignity, as befitted the Ambassador of the greatest nation on earth, I nevertheless congratulated myself that my efforts had been eminently successful. Aided by the promptings of the shrewd old Earl, I had, I flattered myself, exercised a careful and even delicate tact in dealing with this leader among diplomatists, and, as may be imagined, the knowledge that my mission was successful caused me the utmost satisfaction.

When I had first approached the subject he had been inclined to disregard my words, and grew so angry that I feared lest he might tender his resignation, as the Earl had apprehended. But the Minister’s clever arguments, rather than my own tact, convinced him, for he saw that to act at once was imperative; hence the success of my first secret mission.

We sat together for nearly an hour calmly discussing the matter from various standpoints, and when we rose his Excellency again congratulated me upon the soundness of my views, laughingly declaring that, instead of penning the Earl’s impatient and irritating dispatches, he ought to appoint me to a post abroad.

Full of elation, I descended the broad stairs, so thickly carpeted that my feet fell noiselessly, and met unexpectedly, a few moments later, my friend Captain Cargill, of the 2nd Life Guards, the junior Military Attaché, who greeted me with a hearty British hand-grip.

“Didn’t expect to meet you here, old chap,” he cried. “I thought you were tied up in the chief’s private room always, and never allowed out of England.”

“This is the first time I’ve been here officially,” I replied, laughing.

“What’s the trouble? Anything startling?” he inquired.

“No, nothing very extraordinary,” I remarked, carelessly. “I’ve seen the Marquis, and concluded my mission.”

Continuing, I extracted from him a promise to dine with me at the Continental that evening, as I intended to leave next day, and after a brief conversation we parted. Along the shady side of the Rue du Faubourg St Honoré I strolled leisurely, turning into the Rue Royale, passing the gloomy façade of the Madeleine, and continuing along the boulevard to the Grand Café. Paris possessed but little attraction for me in my gloomy frame of mind. Five years of my youth had been spent there, and I knew the city in every mood, but to-day, plunged as I was in a debauch of melancholy, its gay aspect under the warm sunshine jarred upon me.

On leaving the Embassy it had occurred to me to call upon an old friend, who, in my student days, had shared rooms with me, but who had been returned as Deputy at the last election, and now lived in the Rue des Petits-Champs. With that object I had walked along mechanically, and instead of turning down the Rue des Capucines, as I should have done, I had found myself in the Place de l’Opéra. Then, seating myself at one of the tables in front of the Grand Café, I ordered a “bock,” and contemplatively watched the crowd of passers-by.

When last I had sat at that spot it was with Ella, on the night before we had returned to London from our honeymoon. Well I remembered how happy and content she had then been; how she had enjoyed the light, cosmopolitan chatter about her, and how fondly we had loved each other. In those days she had mingled tender words with her kisses, which seemed to bear my soul away. Yet how weary and full of terrible anxiety had been the nine months that had elapsed since that delightful autumn night, the last of our lazy tour through rural France. When I reflected upon all the remarkable occurrences, they seemed like some hideous nightmare, while she herself appeared striking, yet mysterious, as the fair vision in some half-remembered dream.

Thus was I sitting alone at the little marble-topped table, gazing into space, wondering, as I did daily, how my lost wife fared, and whether she ever gave a single passing thought to the man who, notwithstanding all her faults and follies, loved her better than his life, when before my eyes there arose for a second a face that in an instant was familiar.

A man, short of stature and well-dressed, had lounged leisurely by with a cigarette, but scarcely had he walked a dozen yards beyond the café when I jumped up, and rushing along, accosted him.

It was Ivan Renouf.

He turned sharply at mention of his name, regarding me with an inquiring glance, but next second expressed pleasure at our meeting. Together we returned to the café, and chatted amicably over a mazagran. Presently, after we had been speaking of our last interview at Mrs Laing’s, I asked him the truth about his sudden dismissal from her service.

“What your wife told you was quite correct,” he answered, with a mysterious smile; “I was detected.”

“You are generally too wary to be caught by those upon whom you are keeping observation,” I remarked.

Slowly he selected a fresh cigarette, and laughing carelessly, answered,—

“It was not by accident but by design that I was caught. My object was already attained, and I desired to be discharged at once from madame’s service.”

“She left London almost immediately,” I said.

“Yes, I am quite aware of that. It was best for her,” he observed, rather abruptly.

“My wife also fled on the same day,” I exclaimed slowly. “I haven’t seen her since.”

At this announcement he betrayed no surprise, but merely remarked, “So I have heard.”

“Tell me,” I urged earnestly, “do you know anything of her movements? I am endeavouring to find her, and am in utter despair.”

With a sharp glance at me, the great detective stirred his long glass, raised it to his lips, and took a deep draught. Then, slowly replacing it upon the table, he coldly answered,—

“I know nothing of your wife’s whereabouts, m’sieur.”

“Am I to understand that you refuse to tell me anything?” I asked, annoyed.

He shrugged his shoulders, but answered no word. I detested him instinctively.

“Is it not strange that they should both have fled in this extraordinary manner?” I suggested. “Can you assign any motive whatever for their flight?”

“I am really not good at conundrums,” he replied indifferently. “But if you took my advice, m’sieur, you would abandon all thought of her, for at least one fact was quite plain, namely, that mademoiselle never loved you.”

“How do you know that?” I cried, with sinking heart, as the ghastly truth was forced upon me for the thousandth time.

“From my own observations,” he answered, looking straight at me across the table. “Your marriage was, I am fully aware, an unhappy one; therefore you should regard it entirely as of the past. She will never trouble you again, I can assure you.”

“Why?” I demanded. “Your words indicate that you are fully aware of the true facts. Tell me all, Renouf, and set my mind at rest.”

“I have told you all, m’sieur,” he said, suddenly tossing his cigarette away, glancing at his watch and rising. “That is, I have told you all that I may. But I have an appointment,” he added abruptly. “Adieu.”

And before I could prevent him he had raised his hat with a show of politeness, and walked hurriedly off across the broad Place in the direction of the Boulevard des Italiens.

In chagrin I bit my lip, for instead of giving me any clue to the hiding-place of my errant wife, his words only tended to increase my mistrust and despair. Was not, however, his refusal only what I might have expected? I rose and slowly walked away down the Rue Auber, deeply reflecting upon his denunciation of Ella’s faithlessness. What motive could he have, I wondered, in thus declaring that she had never loved me?

That night Cargill dined with me, and after taking our coffee and liqueurs in the courtyard of the Continental, watching the well-dressed crowd of idlers who assemble there nightly after dinner, we strolled out along the brightly-lit streets, where all Paris was enjoying the cool, star-lit evening after the heat and burden of the day.

Our footsteps led us unconsciously to that Mecca of the Briton or American resident in Paris, the Hôtel Chatham, and entering the American bar we found assembled there a number of mutual acquaintances. At one of the small wooden tables sat my old and valued friend, Henry Allender, counsel to the United States Embassy in Paris, a man universally liked in both British and American colonies of the French capital, and opposite him a short, stout, round-faced Frenchman, attired in grey, and wearing the Legion of Honour in his lapel—Monsieur Goron, the well-known Chief of Police. From both I received a cordial welcome, and as we sat down to chat over cocktails carefully mixed by the deft, loquacious bar-tender, Tommy, I took up Le Monde Illustré, lying upon the table, and opened it carelessly.

Several pages I had turned over, when suddenly my eyes fell upon a full-page illustration of a beautiful woman in evening dress, with a fine diamond tiara upon her head. The features were unmistakable. With an involuntary cry that startled my companions, I sat rigid and motionless, glaring at it in abject dismay.

The portrait itself did not surprise me so much as the amazing words printed beneath. The latter held me spellbound.

Chapter Twenty Seven.

Cosmopolitans.

“Why, what’s the matter, old chap?” inquired Cargill, bending forward quickly to glance at the journal. “You look as if you’ve got an acute attack of the jim-jams.”

“See!” I gasped hoarsely, pointing to the printed page upon which my strained eyes had riveted themselves.

“Deucedly pretty woman,” declared the attaché, who was nothing if not a ladies’ man. Few men were better known in Paris than Hugh Cargill.

“Yes, yes, I know,” I exclaimed impatiently. I was sitting dumbfounded, the words beneath the picture dancing before my vision in letters of fire.

The portrait that seemed to smile mockingly at me was a reproduction of a photograph of Ella. The handsome, regular features were unmistakable. With the exception of the magnificent tiara, the ornaments she wore I recognised as belonging to her. All were now in my possession, alas! for on leaving me she had discarded them, and with ineffable sadness I had locked them away in a small cabinet. The jewel-case containing her wedding-ring was a veritable skeleton in my cupboard that I dare not gaze upon.

The picture was undoubtedly that of my lost wife, yet beneath was printed in French the words,—

“Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Elizaveta Nicolayevna of Russia.”

“Look!” I cried, my eye still upon the page. “Surely there’s some mistake! That can’t be the Grand Duchess!”

Allender and Cargill bent simultaneously over the little table, and both declared that there was no mistake.

“She’s very well-known here,” exclaimed the attaché. “I’ve seen her driving her Orloff ponies in the Bois dozens of times. Besides, one never forgets such a face as hers.”

“Does she live here?” I inquired breathlessly.

“Sometimes,” he answered; and smiling behind the veil of tobacco smoke, he added, “She’s been away a long time now. I suppose you want an introduction to her—eh? Well, I don’t expect you’ll be successful, as her circle is the most select in Paris. She never invites any of the ‘corps diplomatique.’”

“No,” I answered huskily, “I desire no introduction.” A sudden giddiness had seized me. The jingle of glasses, the incessant chatter, the loud laughter, and the heavy smoke of cigars had combined with this sudden and bewildering discovery to produce a slight faintness. I took up a glass of ice-water at my elbow and gulped it down.

“Do you know her?” inquired Allender, with a pronounced American accent, at the same time regarding me curiously.

“Yes,” I answered, not without hesitation. “She is—I mean we have already met.”

“Well, you’re to be congratulated,” he answered, smiling. “I reckon she’s the finest looking woman in Paris, and that’s a solid fact.”

Without replying I slowly turned over the page, and there saw a brief article with the same heading as the legend beneath the portrait. Cargill and Allender were attracted at that moment by the entry of one of their friends, a wealthy young man who, with his wife, had forsaken Ohio for residence in the French capital, and while they chatted I eagerly scanned the article, which ran as follows,—

“Paris will welcome the return of Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Elizaveta Nicolayevna of Russia, whose portrait we give on another page. For nearly nine months her great house in the Avenue des Champs Elysées, the scene of so many brilliant fêtes during her last residence there, has been closed, but she arrived in Paris about ten days ago, and has announced her intention of remaining among us until the end of the year. As our readers are no doubt aware, Her Imperial Highness, niece of the late Tzar Alexander, and cousin of the present Czar, is an excellent linguist, speaking English and French perfectly, in addition to her native Russian. She was born at Tzarskoïe-Selo, but her early days were spent in England. She, however, prefers Paris to either London or St Petersburg, although in the latter city her entertainments at the mansion on the English Quay are on a scale almost as brilliant as those at the Winter Palace itself. Her beauty is incomparable, and her diamonds among the finest in Europe. Her munificence to the poor of Paris is well-known. Although moving in the highest circle, she does not fear to go herself into the very vilest slums, accompanied by her trusty Muscovite man-servant, and there distribute relief to the deserving from her own purse. Both the needy and the wealthy therefore welcome her on her return.”

I re-read the article. Then I sat with the paper before me, staring at it in blank bewilderment. The surprising discovery held me petrified. This beautiful woman, who had masqueraded as Ella Laing, and had become my wife by law, was actually the daughter of a reigning house, the cousin of an Emperor.

The astounding truth seemed incredible.

“Well,” asked Cargill, turning to me with a smile a moment later, “have you been reading all about her?”

“Yes,” I answered, drawing a long breath.

“Come, don’t sigh like that, old fellow,” he cried, and glancing across to the bar, shouted, “Mix another dry Martini, Tommy, for my friend.”

To affect indifference I strove vainly. Nevertheless, I listened with eager ears as my three companions commenced discussing the merits of the high-born woman who was my wife. To me she was no longer Ella. Her personality, so vivid and distinct, seemed in those moments of perplexity to fade like the memory of some half-remembered dream.

“Her beauty is simply marvellous,” Allender acknowledged, smoking on in his dry, matter-of-fact way. He was not more than thirty-eight, but by sheer merit as a sound lawyer and a thorough good fellow, he had risen to the lucrative post he held, and had, in the course of five years, formed a large and valuable practice and a wide circle of friends among the English-speaking colonies in the French capital.

“I entirely agree with m’sieur,” observed Monsieur Goron, in his broken English. “Her Highness is very beautiful, but, ah—cold as an icicle.”

“Is there no scandal regarding her?” I inquired eagerly, well knowing that in Paris no woman is considered really chic without some story being whispered about her.

“None,” replied the renowned investigator of Anarchist conspiracies. “I have the pleasure of knowing Her Highness, and I have always found her a most estimable young lady. There is, however,” he added, “some curious romance, I believe, connected with her earlier life.”

“A romance?” cried Cargill. “Do tell us all about it.”

“Ah, unfortunately I do not know the details,” answered the old Frenchman, suddenly exhibiting his palms. “It was alleged once by somebody I met officially—who it was, I really forget. She lived for years in England, and is a cosmopolitan thoroughly, besides being one of the richest women in Paris.”

“Is it true that she sometimes goes into the low quarters of the city and gives money to the poor?” I asked him, for this love of midnight adventure accounted for Ella’s strange penchant for rambling alone at night that had once caused me so much perturbation.

“Certainly. With her, philanthropy is a fad. I accompanied her on several occasions last year,” he replied. “She attired herself in an old, worn-out dress of one of her maids, and disguised herself most effectually. On each night she distributed about five thousand francs with her own hands. Indeed, so well-known is she in certain quarters that I believe she might go there alone with perfect safety. However, when she is going we always know at the Préfecture, and take precautions. It would not do for us to allow anything to happen to an Imperial Highness,” he added.

“Of course not,” observed Cargill, adding with the diplomatic instinct, “Of course. Not in view of the Franco-Russian Alliance,” an observation at which we all three laughed merrily.

“Has she a lover?” inquired Allender, turning to Monsieur Goron.

“I think not,” the other replied. “I never heard of one. Indeed, I have never heard her accused of flirtation with anybody.”

“Tell me, m’sieur,” I asked, “are you acquainted with a Russian named Ivan Renouf, who is, I believe, in the secret service.”

“Renouf!” he repeated, glancing quickly at me with his steel-blue eyes. “Yes, I have met him. He is in Paris at the present moment. Whether he is in the actual service of the Tzar’s Government I don’t know, but one thing is certain, namely, that he is a blackmailer and a scoundrel,” he added frankly.

“What offence has he committed?” I asked, eager to learn some fact to his detriment.

“He keeps well within the bounds of the law,” my companion answered. “Nevertheless he is utterly unscrupulous and most ingenious in his methods. He is reported to be chief of the section of Secret Police attached to the Russian Embassy, but they are a mysterious lot of spies, always coming and going. Sent here from St Petersburg, they remain a few months, watching the revolutionary refugees, and then go back, their places being taken by a fresh batch.”

“Why is Renouf in Paris? Have you any idea?”

“None, m’sieur,” Monsieur Goron answered. “He has been absent fully six months, and only last night I met him coming out of La Scala.”

“Did you speak?”

“Yes. He did not, however, recognise me,” smiled the Chief of Police. “I did not expect he would, as I chanced to be acting as a cabman, and was sitting upon my box outside the theatre. He hailed me, but I refused to drive him. I was waiting for a fare who was enjoying himself inside, and who, on coming out, I had the pleasure of driving straight to the Préfecture,” added the man of a thousand disguises with a chuckle, swallowing his cocktail in one gulp.

“Where does the Grand Duchess live?” I inquired, after a slight pause.

“Deedes is simply gone on her,” cried Cargill, with good-humoured banter. “He evidently wants to take her out to dinner.”

“No,” I protested, smiling grimly. “Nothing of the kind. I only want to know whereabouts in the Avenue des Champs Elysées she lives.”

“It is a large white house, with green jalousies, on the left-hand side, just beyond the Avenue de l’Alma,” explained the Chief of Police, laughing at Cargill’s suggestion.

“But how did you become acquainted with her?” inquired the attaché, presently, after my companions had been praising her face and extolling her virtues.

“We met in London,” I answered vaguely, for I was in no confidential mood.

“And she captivated you, eh?” my friend exclaimed. “Well, I’m not surprised. Half Paris goes mad over her beauty whenever she’s here.”

“It is said, and I believe there’s a good deal of truth in it,” exclaimed Goron, confidentially, “that young Max Duchanel, the well-known writer on the Figaro, committed suicide last year by shooting himself over at Le Pré St Gervais because she disregarded his attentions. At any rate an extravagant letter of reproach and farewell was discovered in his pocket. We hushed up the matter because of the position of the personage therein mentioned.”

At least one man had paid with his life the penalty of his devotion to her. Did not this fact force home once again the truth of Sonia’s disregarded denunciation that Ella was not my friend? It was now plain how neatly I had been tricked; and with what artful ingenuity she had masqueraded as my wife. Monsieur Grodekoff, the Russian Ambassador, Paul Verblioudovitch, and Ivan Renouf all knew her true position, yet feared to tell me. Indeed, my friend Paul had urged me to marry and forgot the past, and his Excellency had actually congratulated us both with outstretched hand. Because she was so well-known in Paris she had, while on our honeymoon, only remained in the capital the night, and had refused to go shopping or show herself unnecessarily. She had preferred a quiet, unfashionable hotel in a by-street to any of those well-known; and I now remembered how, even then, she had remained in her room, pleading fatigue and headache. From our first meeting to the moment of her flight her attitude had been that of a consummate actress.

“Did Her Highness pass under another name in London?” Goron asked me presently, appearing much interested.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Ah!” he ejaculated. “She is perfectly charming, and so fond of concealing her real position beneath the most ordinary patronymic. To me, she is always so affable and so nice.”

“Goron is sweet on her also, I believe,” observed Allender, whereat we all laughed in chorus.

I struggled to preserve an outward show of indifference, but every word these men uttered stabbed my heart deeply. When I had ascertained the whereabouts of her house, my first impulse had been to rush out, drive there, and meet her face to face, but my nerves were, I knew, upset and unsteady, so I remained sitting with my light-hearted companions, endeavouring amid that jingle, popping of corks, and chatter of London, New York and Paris, to think deeply and decide upon the best course to pursue.

“Our chief sent her invitations to the Embassy balls on several occasions a year ago, but she declined each,” I heard the attaché saying. “She’s a royalty, so I suppose she thinks herself just a cut above us. But, after all, I don’t blame her,” he added, reflectively. “Diplomacy is but the art of lying artistically. She has no need to struggle for a foothold in society.”

“Correct,” observed Allender. “The women who flutter around at our Embassy are the gayest crowd I’ve ever struck. I reckon they’re not of her set. But she’s a very fine woman, even though she may be a Highness. She’s simply beautiful. I’ve seen some fine women in my day, but for thrilling a man’s soul and driving him to distraction, I never saw anyone to compare with her.”

“That’s so,” Cargill acquiesced. “Yet her refusal to come to us has often been remarked by our chief, especially as we’ve entertained a crowd of other princesses and high nobilities at one time or another.”

“She has a reason, I suppose,” observed Goron, slowly twisting his eternal caporal.

“Goron appears to know all her secrets,” said Cargill, winking at me knowingly. “He trots her about Paris at night, and she confides in him all her little anxieties and fears. A most charming arrangement.”

The astute officer, who, by his energetic action, had succeeded in effectually stamping out the Anarchist activity, smiled and raised both his hands in protest, crying,—

“No, no, messieurs! It is in you younger men that the pretty women confide. As for me, I am old, fat and ugly.”

“But you act as the protector of the philanthropic Elizaveta Nicolayevna,” observed Cargill, “therefore, when you next see her, tell her how her portrait in Le Monde has been admired by an impressionable young Englishman, named Deedes, and present to her the compliments and profound admiration of all three of us.”

“Don’t do anything of the kind, Goron,” I cried, rather angrily. “Remember I know the lady, and such words would be an insult.”

“Very well, if you’re really going to call on her, you might convey our message,” exclaimed the attaché, nonchalantly. “You’re not jealous, are you?”

“I don’t think there’s any need for jealousy,” I responded.

Goron laughed heartily at this retort. He was more shrewd than the others, and I instinctively felt that he had guessed that Her Highness and myself were a little more than chance-met acquaintances. But the others continued their fooling, happy, careless, bubbling over with buoyant spirits. Many good fellows frequent the bar of the Chatham, one of the most cosmopolitan resorts in Europe. Many adventurers and “dead beats” make it their headquarters, but of all that merry, easy-going crowd of men with money, and those in want of it, to find two men more popular and more generous than Hugh Cargill and Henry Allender would have been difficult.

As we still sat together smoking and drinking, the pair directed their chaff continually in my direction. Evidently believing that the incomparable beauty of Her Highness had fascinated me, they urged me to go to her and suggest a drive in the Bois, a quiet little dinner somewhere, or a box at the opera. Little did they dream how every jesting word they uttered pained me, how each laugh at my expense caused me excruciating anguish, or how any detrimental allegation, spoken unthinkingly, sank deeply into my mind. But I had never worn my heart on my sleeve, therefore I treated their banter with good humour, determined that, at least for the present, they should remain in ignorance of the fact that I was the husband of the woman whose adorable face and charming manner had excited universal admiration in the gayest capital of the world.

Chapter Twenty Eight.

Her Imperial Highness.

Until we rose and separated I succeeded in hiding my sorrow beneath a smile, but when at length I had shaken hands with my companions at the corner of the Rue de la Paix, and to my relief found myself once more alone walking across the Place Vendôme, with the black column standing out before me in the bright moonlight, my outburst of grief became uncontrollable. My heart, lancinated by the careless words of my companions, had been burdened by a bitterness rendered the more poignant because I had been compelled to laugh with them. Now that I had proof that Ella was not what she had represented herself to be—an affectionate, unassuming woman of my own station—I felt crushed, bewildered and disconsolate, for with the knowledge of our difference of birth the iron had entered my soul.

The manner in which she had posed as daughter of the pleasant-faced widow of Robert Laing, and her calm, dignified bearing as my wife, had been a most perfect piece of acting. Never for one moment had I suspected her to be anything else than what she represented herself to be—plain Ella Laing, the only daughter of the deceased shipowner; yet she was actually a daughter of the Romanoffs, the most powerful and wealthy house in Europe. As I strolled slowly along the Rue Castiglione towards the hotel, I asked myself whether she had ever really loved me. At first I doubted her, because of the difference of our stations. Presently, however, when I recollected the perfect bliss of our honeymoon, when I remembered how childishly happy we had been together through those brief autumn days, in the sleepy old towns and villages of the Indre, content in each other’s joys, I could not longer declare within myself that hers had been mere theatrical emotion. Yes, she had loved me then, this high-born woman, over whose beauty half Paris raved, and I, in my ignorance, had fondly imagined our love would last always. The experiment of the masquerade had amused her at first, perhaps, but soon, alas! she had grown tired of life in a ten-roomed house in a quiet road in Kensington, and with a brief, cruel farewell had returned to her jewel-case the ring I had placed upon her slim finger, and left me with ruthless disregard for all the love I had bestowed upon her. Yet after all, was it really surprising that she, the daughter of an Imperial House, should become weary of the humdrum life she had been compelled to lead with one whose private income, outside his salary, was a paltry nine hundred a year?

While we lived together, she had apparently exercised the greatest caution not to show herself possessed of money, for she always did her shopping in Kensington High Street, with due regard to economy, as became the wife of a man of limited means. Never once had she grumbled or sighed because she could not purchase higher-priced hats or dresses, but, always content, she had, I remembered, been proud to exhibit to me those odds-and-ends picked up in drapers’ shops, so dear to the feminine heart, and known as bargains. When I had regretted my small income, as I had done more than once, she had fondly kissed me, declaring herself perfectly willing to wait until I had obtained a diplomatic and more lucrative appointment. “You have an excellent friend in the Earl,” she would say, smiling sweetly. “He is certain to give you a post before long. Be patient.”

I had been patient, and had lost her.

Plunged in deep despair, I turned into the courtyard of the hotel, and sat down to think. As I did so a servant handed me a telegram. It was from Lord Warnham at Osborne, requesting my return on the morrow.

The one thought that possessed me was that Ella—or the woman I had known and adored under that name—was in Paris. Could I leave without seeing her? She had deserted me, it was true, yet my passion was at that moment as intense even as it had been in those calm autumn days when we had wandered together along the peaceful lanes around old-world Chateauroux, hand-in-hand, in sweet contentment. In those never-to-be-forgotten hours we both possessed the delights of love and fever of happiness. To us everything was passion, ecstasy and delirium. We both felt as if we were living in a rose-coloured atmosphere; the heights of sentimentality glistened in our imaginations, and common everyday existence appeared to us to be far down below in the distance—in the shade between the gaps in these heights. I still felt the softness of that tiny hand I had so often pressed to my lips; I still felt the clasp of her arms about my neck; I still saw her deep blue eyes gazing into mine as we interchanged vows of eternal fidelity.

The cry of a man selling the Soir aroused me. I rose suddenly. Yes, I must see her again. I must see her, if for the last time.

Stepping into a cab, I directed the man to drive to her house, then, seating myself, glanced at my watch. It was already near midnight.

Soon, with the clip-clap of the horse’s hoofs sounding upon the asphalte, we were crossing the Place de la Concorde, rendered bright by its myriad lights, then entering the broad avenue we passed the lines of illuminated cafés half-hidden by the trees surrounding them, and, driving on for some ten minutes, at last pulled up among a number of private carriages that were setting down guests before a great mansion, where I alighted.

One of those brilliant fêtes that were the talk of Paris was apparently about to commence, for many notabilities were arriving, and as I went forward to the spacious portico I was preceded by two pretty laughing girls attended by a tall and distinguished-looking man of military appearance. I drew back while they entered the great, brilliantly-lit hall with its fine marble staircase and profusion of exotics; then, when they had passed on, I inquired in French of the gigantic Russian concierge whether Her Highness was at home.

“Yes, m’sieur,” answered the man, gruffly, scanning me closely, noticing that I was attired in a suit of dark tweed, for so suddenly had I left England that I had had no time to take with me a claw-hammer coat. “Her Highness is at home, m’sieur, but she is engaged,” he said, when he had thoroughly inspected me.

I half drew my card-case from my pocket, but fearing lest she might not see me if she knew my name, I said,—

“Go to her, and say that a friend craves one moment of her time upon an important matter.”

“M’sieur gives no card?” he inquired, with a quick, interrogative look of suspicion.

“No,” I answered.

He led me across the hall wherein hung an elaborate Russian ikon, down one long well-carpeted corridor and then along another, at last ushering me into a great apartment resplendent with mirrors, statuary and gilt furniture, the latter bearing embroidered upon the crimson backs of the chairs her monogram, “EN”, surmounted by a Russian coronet. In the costly inlaid cabinets were arranged many pieces of priceless china, the carpet was of rich turquoise blue, the tables of ebony were inlaid with silver, and over all electric lamps, dotted here and there, shaded by coral silk, shed a warm, subdued light. Near the four long windows that occupied one end of the great room was a grand piano, upon which two photographs in ormolu frames stood conspicuously. I crossed to look at them and discovered that one was my own, that she had evidently taken with her when she had so suddenly left my house, and the other a portrait of the man who had betrayed me—Dudley Ogle.

Slowly my eyes wandered around the elegant apartment, unable to realise that this handsome, luxurious abode could actually be my wife’s home. How mean and paltry indeed must our small drawing-room in Phillimore Gardens have appeared to her after all this stately magnificence and rigid etiquette. As I passed through the great mansion, one of the largest private residences in Paris, my nostrils had been greeted by the subtle odours of exotics, and upon my ears there had fallen the strains of an orchestra somewhere in the opposite wing of the building. Guests were evidently not shown to the side of the house where I had been conducted, for not a sound penetrated there. All was quiet, peaceful and stately.

Suddenly, just as I bent to more closely examine Dudley’s portrait, and had distinguished that it was a copy similar to the one I had seen in Sonia’s possession, the door was thrown wide-open by a tall, liveried servant, who entered, and, bowing low, announced in stentorian tones,—“Her Imperial Highness Elizaveta Nicolayevna.”

The rapid frou-frou of silk sounded outside, and next second my wife and I stood face to face.

In an instant the colour left her cheeks. She staggered as if she had been dealt a blow, but managing to regain her self-possession, she turned quickly to the servant, and in a frigid tone said,—

“Go, Anton. And see that I am not disturbed.”

The man, glancing at me for a moment in unfeigned surprise, bowed, and withdrew in silence.

I stood motionless, gazing upon her, noting the beauty of her costume, the brilliance of her diamonds, and the deathly pallor of her adorable face.

“Geoffrey!” she gasped at last. In a half-fearful whisper she repeated my name, adding, “So you have found me!”

With a quick, impetuous movement she walked unevenly towards me, with rustling skirts and outstretched hands. It seemed to me, as I looked at her, as if my soul flew towards her, spreading at first like a wave around the outline of her head, and then, attracted by the whiteness of her breast, descended into her.

“Yes,” I said, slowly and gravely. “I have found you, Ella.”

“Ah, no!” she cried, advancing so close to me that the well-remembered odour of sampaguita intoxicated me. I felt her warm, passionate breath upon my cheek. “Do not call me longer by that false name. Forget it—forget it all, and call me by my right name—Elizaveta.”

“It is impossible,” I answered.

“No, do not say that,” she cried hoarsely. “I—I know I have deceived you, Geoffrey. I lied to you. But forgive me. Tell me that you will some day forget.”

“Think,” I said, in a low, reproachful tone, my heart filled with grief to overflowing—“think how you have wrecked my life,” I urged. “You masqueraded before me as a plain English girl; you married me and allowed me to adore you—ah! better than all the world besides—until you grew tired and left our poor, matter-of-fact home to reassume your true station—that of a Grand Duchess. You never loved me; but it amused you, I suppose, to become the wife of a man who was compelled to earn his livelihood. The economy you practised while with me was a new sensation to you, and your—”

“Stop!” she cried vehemently, putting up her tiny hand to my mouth, as had been her habit long ago when she wished to arrest the flow of my words. “Stop! I cannot bear it! I tell you I did love you, Geoffrey. I love you now, dearer than life.”

“Then why did you practise such base deception?” I demanded. “Why did you leave me and cast aside my wedding-ring?”

“I—I was compelled,” she faltered.

“Compelled!” I echoed, in a voice full of bitter sarcasm. “I do not—indeed I cannot blame you for regretting the false step you took when you consented to become my wife, yet why you should have done this is to me utterly incomprehensible.”

“It will all be plain ere long,” she assured me, in a low, intense voice. “If I had not loved you, I should never have become your wife.”

“But you were cruel to deceive me thus,” I retorted.

“It is my misfortune, Geoffrey, that I was born a Grand Duchess,” she answered, looking straight at me with her deep blue eyes full of intense anxiety and sorrow. “It is not my fault. I swear I still love you with a love as honest and pure as ever a woman entertained towards a man.”

“But after deceiving me in every particular regarding both the past and the present, you thought fit to leave me,” I went on ruthlessly.

“Ah!” she exclaimed, as if reflecting, “I admit that I wronged you cruelly; yes, I admit it all, everything. Nevertheless, since we have parted, Geoffrey, I have recollected daily, with a thousand heartfelt regrets, the supreme joy of our married life. Ah! it was happiness, indeed, with you, the man I so dearly loved. But now,” and she shrugged her shoulders, half-hidden in their pale blue chiffon, the movement causing her diamonds to gleam with fiery iridescence. “Now, without your love, I have happiness no longer. All is despair.”

“I have not forgotten. Every detail of our brief, joyous life together is still fresh in my memory,” I declared sorrowfully.

“Forgotten! How can either of us forget?” she cried impetuously, pushing back from her white brow her gold-brown hair, with its scintillating star. “Only in those few months spent by your side, Geoffrey, have I known what it is to really live and to love. Although I have been absent from you I have, nevertheless, known from time to time how you have fared, yet I dared not give you any sign as to my whereabouts, fearing that you would brand me as base and heartless. To you I must appear so, I know; yet, although we are separated, I am still your wife and you my husband. I still love you. Forgive me.”

And she stood before me with bent head in penitent attitude, her slight frame shaken by tremulous emotion.

A lump rose in my throat. I felt choked by the intoxication of her love, for I idolised her. Yet I knew that, although my wife, she could never be the same to me as in those blissful days in Kensington before the shadow of suspicion fell between us.

“You are silent, Geoffrey,” she whispered hoarsely at last, starting at the sound of her own voice. Then, throwing her soft arms about my neck, she clung to me passionately, as she was wont to do in those bygone days of happiness, saying, “You cannot deny that you still care for me—that I am yours. Yet you are thinking of the past; of what you regard as my base faithlessness! My actions were, I admit, full of apparent ingratitude. Yes, I cast your great love beneath my feet and trampled it in the mire, not because I am what I am, I swear, but because such action was imperative—because I was striving for my emancipation.”

“Your emancipation?” I exclaimed, with a touch of anger. “From your marriage vows, it seems.”

“Ah, no!” cried the Grand Duchess, throwing back her white neck, which rose with her hot, panting breath. “No, no, not that! I struggled to free myself from a tie so hateful that I believe I should have killed myself were it not that I loved you so fondly, and hoped that some day happiness would again be ours. But, alas! I strove in vain; for, when within an ace of success, you became filled with suspicion and accused me of unfaithfulness, while it became imperative, almost at the same moment, that I should return to the position I had sought to relinquish. Since I fled from you I have lived on from day to day full of bitter regrets and in constant fear lest you should discover that I was not what I represented myself to be, and come here to demand an explanation. Well, at last you have come, and—and all I can now do is to assure you that I acted in our mutual interests, and to implore your forgiveness.”

I still gazed at her without replying.

“Forgive me, Geoffrey,” she repeated. “One cannot get accustomed to the loss of happiness, and I cannot live without you; indeed, I cannot. Say that we may begin again, that, even though we must for the present be parted, we may still love and live for each other. See! I am laughing and am happy,” she cried hysterically. “Speak! Do speak to me?”

Tears were trembling in her deep, wonderful eyes like dewdrops in the calix of a blue flower, and without knowing what I did, I stroked her silky hair. Slowly she bent her head, and at last I softly kissed her eyelids.

“Yes,” I said huskily, “I love you, Ella—for I can call you by no other name, and cannot think of you other than as the woman I believed you to be. I can see that although we are man and wife in the eyes of the law, that you were right to end the folly, even though you were unable to do it without some pangs of conscience. You are my wife, it is true, but our lives lie apart, for your position precludes you from acknowledging me to the world as your husband. You—”

“Yes, I will. I will, Geoffrey! Soon I shall be freed from this terrible yoke that crushes me beneath its burden,” she exclaimed eagerly. “Be patient, and ere long we may again live together and enjoy our happiness to the full. You still doubt that I really love you. You believe that my marriage was a mere freak, of which I afterwards repented, and then strove to hide my identity. What can I do?” she cried, dismayed. “What can I do to give you proof that I love no other man?”

“One very small action,” I answered gravely, still holding her slight, trembling form in my arms.

“What is it?” she inquired quickly, glancing up into my face. “I am ready to do it, whatever it is.”

For a moment I paused in hesitation.

“Answer me a single question, Ella,” I said. “Remember you are my wife, and should have no secrets from me. Tell me, truthfully and honestly, how there came into your possession the secret document that was stolen from me on the day of Dudley’s death.”

The colour left her face, her lips moved, and a slight shiver ran over her shoulders as she gazed at me. Never before had her eyes seemed so large, nor had there been such depths in them. Some subtle influence seemed in an instant to have transfigured her whole being.

Chapter Twenty Nine.

The Seal of Silence.

“No, you must not ask me, for I cannot tell you,” she faltered, after I had gravely repeated my earnest inquiry. She shrank from my embrace, and as she stood before me, her handsome head was bent in an attitude of utter dejection.

“Ah, the same lame story?” I cried impatiently. “You refuse.”

She raised her sad eyes. I saw in their clear depths a yearning for pity.

“I dare not tell you yet, Geoffrey,” she whispered, in a strained, terrified voice.

“You know well how much keen anxiety the loss of that document caused me,” I said. “Why did you not tell me that it was in your keeping?”

“It was not in my keeping,” she protested. “I recovered it only a few days before we parted.”

“But you knew something of its whereabouts?” I argued.

“I was not certain,” she vaguely replied, her slim fingers picking at the bands of pearl passementerie across the flimsy chiffon of her bodice.

With an expression of disbelief I turned from her.

“Ah, Geoffrey,” she cried wildly, “I am fully conscious of what your thoughts must be. Now that you have discovered my true position, that I am a Russian, you believe I had a hand in the theft of the Anglo-German Convention; that by my machinations its text was transmitted to St Petersburg—eh?”

No answer passed my lips, but I think I bowed my head in confirmation of her fevered words.

“Well, it is untrue, as you will learn some day. It is untrue, I swear,” she exclaimed with terrible earnestness. “Instead of endeavouring to bring suspicion and opprobrium upon you, and disaster upon the nations of Europe, I have striven both night and day to clear away the ill effect produced by the dastard revelations made to our Ministry in St Petersburg. Remember that the single spark required to fire the mine and convulse the world from Calais to Pekin was not applied; the Tzar refrained from declaring war. Some day you, and through you, the British Government, will know the reason a recourse to arms was averted. When you are made aware of the truth, then no longer will you misjudge me.”

She spoke with a fervency that was entirely unfeigned; her bright eyes met mine with unwavering glance, and with a quick movement she had placed one hand upon her breast as if to allay the palpitation there. Her heart was full; upon her fair face was an expression of mingled anxiety and dread, and her bejewelled hands trembled.

“I am your husband,” I said calmly. “If I promise you not to divulge—surely I may know your secret whatever it may be.”

“No,” she answered, speaking almost mechanically, “I dare not tell you anything at present. It would be fatal to all my plans—fatal to me, and to you.”

“You speak so strangely,” I observed, with some warmth. “Mystery seems one of your idiosyncrasies.”

“Ah,” she sighed, advancing a step towards me, her head sunk upon her breast, “it is imperative. You cannot know how I have suffered, Geoffrey, ever since we met. Long ago at ‘The Nook,’ fearing that I should bring you unhappiness, I strove to tear myself from you and return here to this life, but was unable. I loved you, and hated all the strict etiquette and theatrical display with which I am bound to surround myself, merely because I chance to be born of an Imperial family. I married you, and, content in the knowledge that you loved me devotedly, I was prepared to renounce my name and live quietly with you always. But, alas! we of the Romanoffs are ruled by the head of our House, and our actions are ofttimes in obedience to the will of the Emperor. I was compelled to depart without revealing to you the secret of my birth.”

“But why did you masquerade in that manner?” I inquired.

“At first I did so in order to avoid all the trammels of Court life in St Petersburg, the eternal gaiety of la Ville Lumière, and to be free to do what I liked and go where I chose,” she answered. “Soon, however, my life as Ella Laing became a stern reality, for I met and loved you.”

“Then you regretted?”

“I regretted only because I feared that I cared for you too much—that one day we should be compelled to part.”

“You knew that it was impossible for you to renounce both title and position,” I hazarded, looking at her gravely.

“I feared that my family would not allow me to do so,” she answered frankly. “Yet you proposed marriage; we became man and wife, and the first weeks of our new life were full of joy and happiness. Soon, however, the Nemesis that I dreaded fell upon me, crushing all desire for life from my heart. I was compelled to fly and leave you in ignorance.”

“And you forgot that in your escritoire there remained the stolen agreement?” I said slowly, looking straight into her pale face.

“Yes, I admit it,” she replied, in a voice almost inaudible, her dry lips moving convulsively. “So full was my mind of thoughts of you that I did not remember it until too late to return and secure it.”

“The woman who passed as Mrs Laing was not, of course, your mother?”

“She was no relation whatever. I paid her to pose as my maternal relative and keep house for me.”

“Where is she now?”

“I have no idea,” my wife answered. “She was a curious woman, and, strangely enough, she left London suddenly, on the very morning of the day of my departure.”

“And what of Beck?” I asked. “Did he know who you really were?”

“Scarcely,” she exclaimed. “Do you think he could have kept to himself the knowledge that I was a relative of the Tzar. Why, such a man would have related the fact that he knew me, and dined at our house, to every member of his club within twenty-four hours. You know, as well as I do, how he simply adores anybody with a title. It is the same with all the newly-wealthy crowd who are struggling to get into society.”

It was upon my tongue to explain to her the truth regarding the man-servant who passed as Helmholtz; nevertheless, I hesitated to do so at present because of my promise to Paul Verblioudovitch. The silence between us was protracted. She had covered her tear-stained face with her hands, and was sobbing.

Nevertheless, I was not moved with pity. Her determination to preserve her secret filled me with annoyance. I had expected her to make confession, but I plainly saw she had no intention of revealing the truth.

“Why did you associate with a woman of such doubtful reputation as Sonia Korolénko?” I asked abruptly at last.

“Because I wished to ascertain something,” she replied, in a harsh voice.

“She is scarcely your friend,” I observed.

“She is,” she declared. “I have known her for several years.”

“And you were actually aware of her true character while associating with her!” I exclaimed, rather surprised.

“Of course,” she sighed. “She is an adventuress, I know; nevertheless, she has proved my friend on many occasions.”

“That’s curious,” I remarked.

“Why?”

“Because she made certain allegations against you,” I answered.

“Yes,” she said, without betraying either anger or surprise. “I am fully aware of that. Strange though it may appear, her statements were made with a definite object.”

“Why did she utter such unfounded calumnies?”

“Because I wished to see whether you really loved me,” she answered, drawing herself up and regarding me with sudden calmness. At that moment she assumed the air of the Grand Duchess.

“I did love you,” I declared, “and I took no heed of her assertions. I notice, however,” I added, turning and pointing towards the piano, “I notice that you have placed in a position of conspicuousness the portrait of the man she declared was your lover. Side by side you have placed the pictures of betrayer and betrayed.”

She held her breath, gazing across to the spot I had indicated. Then, in a voice full of emotion, she said,—

“You were foully betrayed, Geoffrey, it is true, but the evil that was done has now been eradicated.”

“In other words, Ogle has paid the death penalty, eh?” I observed, with a grim expression of satisfaction.

“No, no, not that,” she protested seriously. “I mean that the strained relations between your country and mine have now been readjusted, and that a feeling more amicable than before prevails. Even the Earl of Warnham must admit the plain truth that no Power joins another in war unless it sees its own interest in so doing. Russia now, as before the effusion of hearts here in Paris, will attend to her own business, and will not send her Black Sea and Baltic Fleets flying out unless her interests bring her into collision with your British Government—and then it may happen it will not be the interest of France to fight. In the latter days of Louis Philippe there was talk of a Franco-Russian alliance, and there were people who knew—they did not think they knew on the best authority—that the two would be one next spring. Yet Louis Philippe went over to your England an exile by the useful name of Smith, and before long France and England were allied in war against my country. No, good counsel has prevailed, and by the very revelation of the secret alliance contracted between England and Germany, European peace has been secured.”

“You talk like a diplomatist,” I observed reflectively.

She shrugged her shoulders, and with a forced laugh said,—

“It is but natural that I should take an interest in the affairs of nations, I suppose.”

“Let us put them aside,” I said. “We are not rival diplomatists, but husband and wife; we—”

“Yes, yes,” she cried, interrupting. “I am happy because you are here with me; you, whose presence I have been fearing for so long. See! I smile and am happy;” and she gave vent to a hollow, discordant laugh.

“Happy because you have so successfully mystified me,” I sighed.

“No. Happy because I love you, Geoffrey,” she exclaimed, again throwing her arms affectionately about my neck, and raising her full red lips to mine. “Forgive me; do say you will forgive me,” she implored.

“How can I ever forget the ingenuity and deep cunning with which you deceived me,” I said. “I cannot but recollect how, on that night at Chesham House, Grodekoff congratulated you upon your marriage, yet how careful he was not to disclose to me your identity. Again, even my friend Verblioudovitch must have known who you really were. Why did he not tell me?”

“Because the staff of the Embassy had already received strict orders from St Petersburg not to acknowledge me,” she exclaimed, with a smile. “Lord Warnham fancied he recognised me, and spoke to the Ambassador; but the latter succeeded in assuring him that before marriage I was Ella Laing, and that the Grand Duchess Elizaveta Nicolayevna was at that moment with the Tzarina at Tzarskoïe-Selo. He believed it, and afterwards M’sieur Grodekoff assured me that was the first occasion he had been enabled to successfully deceive your lynx-eyed Foreign Minister.”

“You feared that the Earl might recognise you,” I exclaimed, surprised, for I now remembered the effect produced on my chief when his eyes had first fallen upon my wife. “You knew him, then?”

“Ah, no,” she faltered; “well, we were not exactly acquainted,” and she appeared rather confused, I thought, for her cheeks were suffused by the faintest suspicion of a blush.

“Did you expect he would be there?”

“No; you told me distinctly that he was not going, otherwise I should never have accompanied you,” she said frankly.

“Why?”

“Because I did not desire to meet him,” she replied, adding, with a laugh, “As it was, however, he was satisfied, and went away marvelling, no doubt, at the striking resemblance.”

“Yet you told me nothing,” I observed reproachfully.

“No; I was afraid,” she replied, in a serious voice. “With you I lived on from day to day, fearing detection, dreading lest you should discover some facts regarding my past, and by their light believe me to be an adventuress. Yet, at the same time, I worked on to achieve my freedom from a yoke which had become so galling that, now I loved you, I could endure it no longer.”

“And did you not succeed in breaking asunder this mysterious bond?” I inquired, half doubtfully.

“No,” she answered, shaking her head sorrowfully. “By an untoward circumstance, against which I had not provided, I was prevented, and compelled to flee.”

“If you will divulge absolutely nothing regarding the manner in which you became possessed of the stolen convention, or the reason you have masqueraded as my wife, you can at least tell me why you received so many communications regarding clandestine meetings, and explain who was your mysterious correspondent who signed himself ‘X.’”

Her heart beat quickly; she sighed, and lowered her gaze. She strove to preserve a demeanour of calm hauteur as befitted her station, but in vain.

“You have also found those letters,” she remarked, her voice trembling.

“Yes. Tell me the truth and put my mind at ease.”

“I can put your mind entirely at ease by assuring you, as I did after you detected me walking in Kensington Gardens, that I have had no lover besides yourself, Geoffrey,” she cried vehemently. “I have told you already that I worked to secure freedom of action in the future. Those letters were from one who rendered me considerable assistance.”

“What was his name?” I demanded quickly.

“I may not tell you that,” was her answer, uttered in a quiet, firm tone.

“Then, speaking plainly, you refuse, even now, to give me any elucidation whatever of this irritating mystery, or to allow me to obtain any corroboration of your remarkable story,” I said, with a sudden coldness.

She noticed my change of manner, and clung to me with uplifted face, pale and agitated. Her attempt to treat me as other than her husband had utterly failed.

“Ah! do not speak so cruelly,” she exclaimed, panting. “I—I really cannot bear it, Geoffrey—indeed I can’t. You must have seen that I loved you. I was, when I married, prepared to sacrifice all for your sake; nay, I did sacrifice everything until—until I was forced from you, and thrust back here to this place, that to me is little else than a gilded prison. Ah?” she cried, sobbing bitterly, and gazing around her in despair, “you cannot know how deeply I have sorrowed, how poignant has been the grief in the secret and inmost recesses of my heart; or how, through these months, while I have been travelling, I have longed to see you once again, and hear your voice telling me of your love. But, alas! without knowledge of the strange secret that seals my lips, you can know nothing—nothing!”

“I only know that I still adore you,” I said, with heartfelt fervency.

“Ah! I knew you did,” she exclaimed, raising her eager lips to mine in ecstasy. “I knew you would pity me when you came, yet I feared—I feared because I had lied to you, and deceived you so completely.” Then she kissed my lips, but I did not return her hot, passionate caress, although I confess it made my head reel.

“You have not forgiven,” she exclaimed, in a voice quivering with emotion, as she drew back. “You have not yet promised that you will still regard me as your wife.”

I hesitated. The startling fact of her true station, and the revelation of how ingeniously I had been tricked, caused me a slight revulsion of feeling. Somehow, as Grand Duchess she seemed an entirely different being to the plain, unassuming woman I had known as Ella. From the crown of her well-dressed hair to the point of her tiny, white kid shoe with its pearl embroidery, she was a patrician; the magnificence of her dress and jewels dazzled me, yet in her declarations of devotion her voice seemed to be marred by some indefinable but spurious ring.

Even now she was deceiving me. She would allow no word of her mysterious secret to pass her lips. It had always been the same. She would tell me absolutely nothing, vaguely asserting that to utter the truth would be to invoke an avenging power that she dreaded. I remembered how she had seemed terrorised on more than one occasion when I had demanded the truth, yet what I had learned that night increased my suspicions.

“If I forgive and seek no explanation of the past,” I said at last, “we must, I suppose, remain parted.”

“Ah, yes!” she gasped. “But only for a few short weeks. Then we will come together again never to part—never.”

“I can forgive on one condition only,” I said—“that you tell me the truth regarding the dastardly theft from me on the day of Dudley’s death.”

For an instant she was silent. Then, burying her face on my shoulder, sobbing, she answered in a tone so low as to be almost inaudible,—

“I cannot!”

Gently but firmly I put her from me, although she clung about my neck, urging me to pity her.

“I cannot pity you if you refuse to repose confidence in me,” I answered.

“I do not refuse,” she cried. “It is because my secret is of such a nature that, if divulged, it would wreck both your own happiness and mine.”

“Then to argue further is absolutely useless,” I answered coldly. “We must part.”

“You intend to leave me without forgiveness,” she wailed. “Ah, you will not be so cruel, Geoffrey. Surely you can see how passionately I love you.”

“You do not, however, love me sufficiently well to risk all consequences of divulging your mysterious secret,” I retorted, with almost brutal indifference, turning slowly from her.

“Then kiss me, Geoffrey,” she cried wildly, springing towards me and again entwining her soft arms about my neck. “Kiss me once again—if for the last time.”

Our lips met for an instant, then slowly I disengaged myself and strode towards the door. In her refusal to throw light upon the incidents that had so long held me perplexed and bewildered, I fancied she was shielding someone. Although crushed and downcast, I had resolved to go forth into the world again with my terrible burden of sorrow concealed beneath a smiling countenance. I regretted deeply that I had sought her, now that I was aware of the gulf that lay between us.

“Stay, Geoffrey! Stay. I cannot bear that you should go,” she wailed.

Halting, I turned towards her, saying,—

“When I have learnt the truth, then only will I return. Till then, I can have no faith in you.”

“But you are my husband, Geoffrey. I love you.”

She tottered forward unevenly, as if to follow me, but ere I could save her she staggered and fell forward upon the carpet in a dead faint.

I rang the bell violently, then, with a final glance at the blanched features of the woman I so dearly loved, I passed out, struggling through the brilliant, laughing throng of guests in the great hall, and was soon alone in utter dejection beneath the trees in the long, gas-lit avenue.

Chapter Thirty.

Honour among Thieves.

In brilliant sunshine, with the larks singing merrily in the cloudless vault of blue, and the air heavy with the scent of hay, I drove from Horsham station along the old turnpike road to Warnham Hall. A carriage had been sent for me, as usual, and as I sat back moodily, I fear I saw little of interest in the typical English landscape. The joys of the world were dead to me, consumed as I was by the one great sorrow of my life. My mind was full of the tristful past. I had reached London from Paris on the previous night, and in response to a telegram from the Earl, saying he had left Osborne and gone to the Hall, I had travelled down by the morning train.

As we entered the park and drove up the broad, well-kept drive, the startled deer bounded away, and the emus raised their small heads with resentful, inquiring glance, but dashing along, the pair of spanking bays quickly brought me up to the great grey portico. As soon as I alighted I handed over my traps to one of the servants and walked straight to the great oak-panelled dining-room.

As I paused at the door, it suddenly opened, and a man emerged so quickly that he almost stumbled over me. Our eyes met. I stood aghast, staring as if I had seen an apparition. In the semi-darkness of the corridor I doubt whether my face was quite distinguishable, but upon his there shone the slanting rays of light from an old diamond-paned window. In a instant I recognised the features, although I had only seen them once before.

It was the foppish young man who had been Ella’s companion on that lonely walk in Kensington Gardens.

Why he had visited the Earl was an inscrutable mystery. He regarded me in surprise for a single instant, then, thrusting both hands negligently into his trousers pockets, strode leisurely away along the corridor, a straw hat with black and white band placed jauntily at the back of his head. I watched him until he had turned the corner and disappeared, then I entered the great old-fashioned apartment.

“Well, Deedes!” exclaimed the Earl, in a voice that was unusually cheerful. He was standing at the window gazing across the park, but my presence caused him to turn sharply. “Back again, then?”

“Yes. I think I have fulfilled the mission,” I managed to exclaim. Truth to tell, this extraordinary encounter had caused me considerable perplexity and annoyance.

“You have done excellently,” he said. “A telegram this morning from Lord Worthorpe shows with what tact you put matters to him, and I am glad to tell you that his interview with the President proved entirely satisfactory. I wired the news to Her Majesty only half-an-hour ago.”

“I did my best,” I observed, perhaps a trifle carelessly, for there was another matter upon which I was anxious to consult my eccentric benefactor.

“The task was one of unusual difficulty, I admit, Deedes, and you have shown yourself fully qualified for a post abroad. You shall have one before long.”

At other times I should have warmly welcomed the enthusiasm of this speech, and thanked him heartily for the promise of a more lucrative position, but now, crushed and hopeless, I felt that joy had left my soul for ever, and merely replied,—

“I am quite satisfied to be as I am. I do not care for the Continent.”

“Why?” he inquired, surprised. “If you remain in the Service here you will have but little chance of distinguishing yourself, whereas in Rome, Constantinople or Berlin, you might obtain chances of promotion.”

“I have been already in St Petersburg, you remember,” I said.

“Ah, of course. But you didn’t get on very well there,” he said. “It is a difficult staff for younger men to work amongst. You’d be more comfortable in Vienna, perhaps. Viennese society would suit you, wouldn’t it?”

“No,” I replied, very gravely. “I fear that henceforward I shall be, like yourself, a hater of society and all its ways.”

“Oh?” he exclaimed, placing his hands beneath his coat-tails, a habit of his when about to enter any earnest consultation. “Why?”

“Well, if you desire to know the truth,” I said, “it concerns my marriage.”

“Ah, of course!” he observed, with deep sorrow. “I had quite forgotten that unfortunate affair. Yet time will cause you to forget. You are young, remember, Deedes—very young, compared with an old stager like myself.”

“It is scarcely likely that I shall forget so easily,” I said, after a slight pause. “Since I have been in Paris I have made a discovery that has bewildered me. I confide in you because you are the only person who knows the secret of my wife’s flight.”

“Quite right,” he said, regarding me with those piercing eyes shaded by their grey shaggy, brows. “If I can assist you or give you advice I am always pleased, for the romance of your marriage is the strangest I have ever known.”

“Yes,” I acquiesced, “and the truth I have accidentally learnt still stranger. I have discovered that my wife was never Ella Laing, as I had believed, but that she really is the Grand Duchess Elizaveta Nicolayevna of Russia.”

“The Grand Duchess!” he cried, amazed, his eyes aflame in an instant. “Are you certain of this; have you absolute proof?”

“Absolute. I have seen her, and she has admitted it, and told me that she masqueraded in England as Ella Laing because she desired to avoid Court etiquette for a time,” I said.

“Grodekoff lied,” he growled in an ebullition of anger. “I recognised her at the Embassy ball when you pointed her out, yet the Ambassador assured me that Her Highness was at that moment in Russia. We have both been tricked, Deedes. But he who laughs last laughs longest.”

He had folded his arms and was standing resolutely before me, gazing upon the dead green carpet deep in thought.

“The mystery becomes daily more puzzling,” he said at length, seating himself. “Tell me all that transpired between you.”

I sank into a chair opposite the renowned chief of the Foreign Office and repeated the conversation that had taken place at our interview, while he listened attentively without hazarding a single remark.

“Then again she would tell you nothing,” exclaimed the Earl, when I had concluded. “She refused absolutely to divulge her secret.”

“Yes,” I said. “I promised to forgive if she would only tell me the truth. She refused; so we have parted.”

“And what do you intend doing?”

“I intend to seek the truth for myself,” I answered with fierce resolve.

“How?”

“I have not yet decided,” I said. “The reason she took such infinite pains to conceal her identity is incomprehensible, but her firm resolution to preserve her secret at all hazards appears as though she is in deadly fear of exposure by some person or other who can only be conciliated by absolute silence.”

“Then we must discover who that person is.”

I nodded, answering:—“I intend to do so.”

Presently, after he had crossed and recrossed the room several times with hands behind his back, murmuring to himself in apparent discontent, but in tones that were undistinguishable, I turned to him saying,—

“As I entered, a visitor left you. Who is he?”

“Cecil Bingham. He is staying with me for a few days.”

“A friend?”

“Well—yes,” answered his Lordship, halting, and regarding me with no little surprise. “What do you know of him?”

At first I hesitated, but on reflection resolved to explain the circumstances in which we had met, and slowly related to him how I had encountered him with my wife in Kensington Gardens on that well-remembered wintry afternoon.

The Earl grew grave, and after observing that Bingham had arrived on the previous day to spend a week, he for some moments stood looking aimlessly out of the window upon the broad park and the great sheet of water glistening in the sunlight beyond. Then, muttering something I could not catch, he walked quickly back to the fireplace, and touched the electric bell.