"Did you spot him, sir?" he asked, eagerly. "That's him as you ran into on the stairs—Sacovitch."

I answered that I should know the man again, and with that should have forgotten to think about him, but that for days afterwards Hinge was full of excited intelligence about him, relating how he had received such a visitor at such a time, and had gone out in a cab at such an hour, returning after such and such a length of absence. In a very little time the mention of him became a bore, and I forbade Hinge to speak of him unless he had something of importance to tell me.

In the meantime I wrote my note and sent it to the post. I waited all day, and received no answer. When the next morning's post came in I turned my letters over hastily, and was a little surprised, as well as disappointed, to find that I had no line from Violet. Again that morning I made my way to Lady Rollinson's house, and again the accustomed servant met me, and this time fairly staggered me with a repetition of his "Not at home."

"Am I to understand," I asked, "that Lady Rollinson and Miss Rossano have left town?"

"Can't say, sir," said the man, staring straight above my head with unmoving eyes, but fidgeting nervously with his hands and feet. "My orders is: 'Not at home to Captain Fyffe.'"

"That will do," I returned, and walked away, more puzzled than I had ever been in my life before. I went back to my rooms, and there I wrote this note:

"Dear Lady Rollinson,—When I called at your house yesterday I was told that you and Violet were not at home. When I called again this morning, I was told that you were 'not at home to Captain Fyffe.' This troubles and worries me so much that I hope you will not think me impertinent if I ask the reason for it."

I despatched that letter by Hinge, with instructions to await an answer. In half an hour the answer came, and for the time being left me more puzzled and troubled than ever:

"Lady Rollinson acknowledges the receipt of Captain Fyffe's letter, and begs to say that on the two occasions referred to by Captain Fyffe her instructions were accurately obeyed by her servant."

That was all. There was not one word in explanation of this astonishing announcement. Violet and I were engaged to be married, with her father's warmest approval, and Lady Rollinson had, until that moment, shown nothing but the most enthusiastic favor for the match. And here, on a sudden, I was forbidden the house, without rhyme or reason.

For an hour I was like a man on whom a thunderbolt had fallen.



CHAPTER XVII

Of course I had a right to an explanation, and equally, of course, I was determined to have it. But the question was how to get it, and I confess that for a long time I did not see my way. If one had been dealing with a man it would have been very different. But when a lady with whom you have been on terms of intimacy and friendship turns round upon you without any cause you can assign, and tells you she desires to have no more to do with you, it is not easy to see by what means you can force her to a recognition of your side of the business. What made the thing the more astonishing and bewildering was that Lady Rollinson had always been so warm in her friendship for me. Over and over again she had alluded to my services to her son, and she had introduced me to scores of people as the savior of his life, magnifying a very simple incident to such heroic proportions that she often put me to the blush about it, and almost tempted me to wish that I had let poor Jack take his chance without any interference of mine. To have seen a lady the day before yesterday, to have been hailed by her for the hundredth time as her son's preserver, to get a solemn "Not at home" thrown at you when next you called—it was an experience entirely new, and anything but agreeable.

If I may say so without bragging, I have been judged a fairly good officer in my time. I can give an order, I can obey an order, I can see that an order is obeyed; but outside the realms of discipline, and in the common complications of life, I have never felt myself to be very much at ease! The whole of this present business was so bewildering that if only Lady Rollinson herself had been concerned I should have retired from the consideration of the problem instantly. But then she stopped my access to. Violet, and that, for a young fellow who was ardently in love, put altogether another complexion on the affair. When I had got over my first amazement, I sat down and wrote a note, which, in the fervor of my feeling, bade fair to develop into a document which would have filled, say, a column of the Times. But when I had written, perhaps, a hundredth part of what I felt it in me to say, I tore up the paper and threw its fragments into the fire. Then I started afresh, determined to be extremely brief and business-like. Once more my feelings got the upper hand of me, and again I covered half a dozen closely-written pages before I discovered my mistake anew. Finally I sat down to a pipe and thought the matter over, until I decided on a definite line of action. The upshot of it all was that I wrote this note, and with my own hands bore it to her ladyship's house:

"Dear Lady Rollinson,—I am utterly at a loss to understand the occurrences of yesterday and to-day. A moment's reflection will show you that an explanation is absolutely due to me. It is my right to demand it, and it is at once your duty and your right to give it."

Armed with this document I set out. The same perturbed domestic greeted me with the formula to which I was by this time growing accustomed, and when I instructed him to carry the note within doors and deliver it to his mistress, he closed the door in my face and left me to await an answer on the steps. The position was anything but comfortable. It was a bright day, and a good many people were abroad, considering how quiet the street generally was. I felt as if everybody who passed was completely aware of my discomfiture. Not a nurse-maid went by with her charge who did not, to my distempered fancy, know my business, and look meaningly at me in appreciation of my position. By-and-by the door opened, and the servant asked me to step inside. I had been cooling my heels on the steps for full five minutes, and was by this time as little self-possessed as I have ever been in my life. I followed the man blindly into the familiar morning-room, and was there left alone for another ten minutes. Anger was taking the place of bewilderment, and I was striding rapidly up and down the room when Lady Rollinson entered. The weather was still cold, but she carried a fan in her hand, and moved it rapidly as she walked into the room and sank into a chair. I bowed with a stiff inclination of the head, but she made no return to my salute.

"I hope, Captain Fyffe," she said, "that you will make this interview as brief as possible. It is likely to be painful to both of us, but you have insisted on it. I do not see what purpose it can serve, but it is just as well that you should understand that I am finally determined."

It was plainly to be seen that she was painfully agitated; and though she had done her best to abolish the traces of the fact, I could see that she had been crying.

"You are finally determined!" I echoed, and I dare say my manner was foolish enough. "But what are you finally determined about?"

"I am finally determined," she responded, "that everything is over between us; and until the count returns and learns the dreadful truth, everything, so far as my influence can go, is over between you and Violet."

"What is the dreadful truth?" I asked. "I give you my word that I am utterly in the dark."

Now Lady Rollinson was a dear old woman, and I had had a warm affection for her. On her side she had treated me from the beginning of our acquaintance almost as if I had been her son; and hitherto there had been nothing but the most friendly and affectionate sentiment between us. But I began to get angry, and I dare say I spoke in a tone to which she had been little accustomed. She cast an indignant glance at me, and fanned herself at a great rate for a full minute before she answered.

"Come," I repeated more than once; "what is this dreadful truth? Surely I have a right to know it."

"You shall know it, Captain Fyffe," she answered, in a voice of weeping menace such as women use when they are both wounded and angry; "you shall have it in a word." She dropped her fan upon her knees, and asked me, with a lugubrious air of triumph and reproach, "Did you ever hear of Constance Pleyel?"

I was standing before her, and as she leaned forward suddenly to offer this surprising question I stepped back a little. A chair caught me at the back of the knees, and I dropped into it as if I had been shot. I have laughed in memory many a time over that ludicrous accident, but it was no laughing matter at the moment, for it sent a conviction to the old lady's mind which I do not think was altogether banished from it to her dying day. Of course the question in such a connection came upon me as a surprise. In all my searchings for the cause of her ladyship's distemper I had not lighted on the thought of Constance Pleyel. I was not so much amazed at it that the name alone could have bowled me over in that way; but Lady Rollinson's idea was that it had gone home instantly to a guilty conscience.

"That is enough," she said, "and more than enough." With these words she arose and walked towards the door, but I intercepted her.

"I beg your pardon, it is not enough, or nearly enough."

"You know the name," she answered. "You have shown me enough to tell me that."

"I know the name, certainly," I replied. "I have known the name and the person that owns the name for many years. But that fact affords a very partial explanation of your conduct. I must trouble you to sit down, Lady Rollinson, and listen to what I have to say."

The stupid, good old woman had taken her side already, and if anything had been needed to confirm her own mistaken judgment of the case that ludicrous accident would have supplied it. She fanned herself in an emotion made up of wrath and grief and dignity, glancing at me from time to time, and looking away again with an expression of disdain, which was hard for an innocent man to bear.

"I suppose," I said, as coolly as I could, "that whatever information you have upon this matter comes from the Baroness Bonnar?" I waited for an answer, but she gave no sign. "I must trouble you to tell me if that is so."

"You know that well enough," she answered. "The Baroness Bonnar is the only friend the poor creature has in London."

"Do you know much of the Baroness Bonnar?" I asked. "Would it ever have occurred to you to guess that the Baroness Bonnar is neither more nor less than a paid Austrian spy, and that Miss Constance Pleyel is, in all probability, her confederate?"

She looked at me with an incredulity so open that I felt it to be an insult, and she preserved the same disdainful silence.

"I came here yesterday," I continued, "to consult Violet—"

She interrupted me almost with a shriek.

"Don't mention that poor girl's name!" she cried. "I won't have it mentioned! I won't listen to it in this connection!"

"Pardon me," I said, "it has to be mentioned, and unless you are in the humor to permit yourself to be made the dupe and tool of as wicked a little adventuress as ever lived, you must listen to what I have to tell you. I came here yesterday to consult Violet as to what I should do with respect to a plot in which I have found the baroness to be engaged. You have often heard the count and myself speak of poor old Ruffiano. You know him as one of Violet's pensioners, and, indeed, I remember that twice or thrice I have met him in your house. He has been betrayed to the Austrians, and is at this minute in their hands. The prime mover in that matter is the Baroness Bonnar, and her tool was the Honorable George Brunow."

Now surely one would have thought that a charge so plain and dreadful was at least worth investigation, and it had not entered my mind to conceive that even an angry woman could fail to take some sort of account of it. Lady Rollinson took it merely as a tissue of absurdities.

"It only shows," she said, "how desperate your own case must be when you need to bolster it by a story like that—a story which could be proved to be false in half a minute."

"Why should you suppose me," I retorted, "to be so foolish as to bring you such a story if it could not be proved to be true? I ask nothing more or less than that you should inquire into the matter."

"I shall do nothing of the sort," she answered. "I know too much already."

"I am sorry," I answered, "to be so seriously at issue with you on such a theme, but I am compelled to insist upon my right."

"I shall have nothing to say on the matter," she answered, "until the count returns. He will be the final judge of what is to be done; but until he comes I shall do my duty, and it is no part of my duty to allow my niece to listen to the persuasions of a man who has only too clearly proved his powers in that way already."

"Only a few weeks ago," I said, desperately, "I had an interview with the Baroness Bonnar, in which I warned her not to intrude upon your society again."

"I know all about it!" cried Lady Rollinson, with an indignant movement of her fan. "You tried to bully the poor thing into silence. You may save yourself any further trouble, Captain Fyffe. My mind is made up, and I shall do what I have decided to do. In my days," she added, beginning to cry, which made the situation more intolerable than ever—"in my days, when a gentleman was told by a lady that his presence was unwelcome in her house he would never have intruded."

"My dear Lady Rollinson," I responded, controlling myself with a very considerable effort, "you must listen to reason. You have been made the dupe of a thoroughly heartless and unprincipled woman."

"That appears to be your method!" She flashed back at me. "You can say what you please about my character, now that I know yours. Thank God I am too well known to fear your rancorous tongue!"

The position was actually maddening, and I had never dreamed until then that even a woman who was bent on revenging what she conceived to be a gross injury to one of her own sex could be so utterly unreasonable and deaf to argument.

"I repeat, madame," I declared, "that the Count Ruffiano has been betrayed to the enemy by this woman whose lies you accept as if they were gospel. Brunow confessed to me barely six-and-thirty hours ago that he acted as her agent in that villainous transaction. Is that a woman whose bare word is to be taken against the overwhelming proof an honest man can bring?"

I know I was excited, and it is very likely that I was speaking in a louder voice than I was altogether aware of, but her answer gave me a new surprise.

"I am not in the least afraid of you, Captain Fyffe; my servants are in the house, and I can ring for them at any minute."

This cooled me, even in the middle of my exasperation and the galling sense of impotence I felt.

"I beg your pardon, Lady Rollinson. I am bewildered by your manner. I am laboring under an accusation of a very dreadful sort, and you refuse to listen to me, though I can prove my innocence quite easily."

"Why," she exclaimed, "I haven't even told the man what the accusation is! But in spite of his innocence he knows all about it."

"I know all about it," I retorted, "because it has been brought against me before, and withdrawn by the very woman who brings it now. Will you listen to me, Lady Rollinson?"

"I will not willingly listen to another word."

"Where is Violet?" I asked.

"That I shall not tell you," she answered. "I have made up my mind I shall do nothing until the arrival of the count. When he comes back, if ever he does, poor man, the responsibility will be off my shoulders. Until then, I shall take very good care that you have nothing to do with Violet."

This seemed to me to be carrying things with far too high a hand, and there, at least, I thought I had a right to speak with some show of authority.

"Violet," I said, "is my promised wife, and I am not going to allow any folly of this kind to come between her and me. I shall insist upon my right to see her, and to clear myself of any accusation which may have been brought against me in my absence."

"You may insist as much as you please, Captain Fyffe," Lady Rollinson answered. "I have made up my mind as to what is my duty, and I shall do it, even at the risk of your most serious displeasure."

"You tell me," I said, "that she is not here?"

"I have told you already," she replied, "that she is not here. I have made arrangements for her until the count returns."

"And am I to understand," I asked, "that you refuse to allow me to know her address?"

"You may understand that definitely," said her ladyship.

It was all very disagreeable, but at least there was one ray of comfort in the middle of it.

"Violet knows my address," I said, "and she is certain to write to me."

"I might have something to thank you for there, Captain Fyffe," said the old lady, with an almost comical increase of dignity, "if I had not already taken my precautions. I may tell you, however, that Violet is accompanied by a discreet person, who has my instructions as to the disposal of any letters she may write."

This amounted to an open declaration of war, and I felt myself on the point of answering so hotly that I was wise in binding myself, for the moment at least, to silence.

"Pray let us thoroughly understand each other," I said at length. "You, on your side, have resolved to place complete reliance on the statement of an exposed adventuress, without one word of corroboration, and to refuse the clear proof of my innocence, which I undertake to give you." I waited for a moment, but she maintained an altogether obstinate silence. "Very well," I resumed, "that is understood so far. You conceive it your duty to separate Violet and myself, and to attempt to widen any possible separation between us by suppressing my letters to her and hers to me. You must permit me to point out to you that you are adopting a very dangerous course, and I must warn you that I shall do my best to frustrate a design which seems to me so ureasonable and so cruel that I should never have thought you capable of forming it."

"You will do your best, of course," she answered, "and I shall do mine. I wish you good-morning, Captain Fyffe."

What with perplexity, and what with grief and anger, I scarce knew what to do, but I turned to her with a final appeal.

"I am sure," I said, "that you have your niece's interests at heart. It is not so very long since you professed to be my friend. Ever since I have known you I have had to tell you that you very much overestimated a chance service I have rendered to your son."

"I have been waiting for that," she answered. "That is just the sort of appeal I was expecting you to make. It is of no use for us to discuss this question any longer, for let me tell you I have seen your letters."

"The letters!" I cried.

"The letters," she repeated—"the letters to Miss Constance Pleyel."

"Great Heaven, madam!" I cried, exasperated beyond patience, "I have never denied that I wrote to Miss Constance Pleyel, but the letters were written when I was a boy, and they are as absolutely harmless and blameless as any love-sick nonsense ever written in the world!"

"I have seen the letters," she repeated, "and I have seen Miss Pleyel, and, once more, Captain Fyffe, and for the last time, I have made up my mind."

With that she laid her hand upon the bell-pull, and sounded a peal at the bell which was so rapidly answered that I more than half suspected, and, indeed, do now more than half suspect, that the man who responded to it had been listening.

"Show Captain Fyffe out," said her ladyship. And so, a definite end being put to the interview, I left the house as wrathful and as humiliated a man as any to be found that hour in London. So long as I live I shall not forget the smug alacrity with which the servant obeyed the behest of his mistress. I was in a state to wreak my own ill-humor upon anybody, and it was in my mind, and more than half in my heart, to kick that smug man in livery down the steps. I have suffered all my life from a certain Scotch vivacity of temperament which it has cost me many and many a hard struggle to control. It has not often been more unreasonable or more vigorous in its internal demonstrations than it was then, but I managed to reach the street and to walk away without exposing myself. As to where I went for the next few hours I never had the remotest idea. I must have walked a good many miles, for at last, when I pulled up, I found myself, at five o'clock in the evening, in a part of the town to which I was a complete stranger, and I had a confused remembrance of Oxford Street and the parks, and then of Highgate Archway. I made out, after a while, that I was at the East End, and, turning westward, I tramped back to my own lodgings with a return to self-possession which was partly due to the fact that bodily fatigue had dulled the sting of resentment.

Hinge had dinner ready when I reached home, but I had no appetite for it, and, to the good fellow's dismay, I sent it away untasted. I turned over a thousand schemes that evening, and rejected each in turn. But I decided, finally, to prepare an advertisement for the newspapers, Which might perhaps prevent further mischief. I concocted so many subterfuges, each of which in turn proved to reveal too much or to be too enigmatical, that at ten o'clock I found myself with a dozen sheets of closely-written paper before me. But at last I hit on this:

"Dear Violet,—Distrust altogether anything you may hear to my disadvantage until I have found an opportunity to explain. Do not wonder at not hearing from me. Both your letters and mine are intercepted. When you next write, post letter with your own hand."

After much consideration, I hit upon "John of Itzia" as a signature, and having made three clear copies, I drove round to the offices of the three great daily newspapers of that date, and at each secured the insertion of this advertisement for a week. A little comforted by that achievement, I went to bed, and, being dog tired, got to sleep.

The days that followed were among the dreariest I can remember. I spent them for the most part at home, sitting at the open window which looked upon the street, and waiting for the advent of the postman.

I was there in the morning an hour before his arrival could reasonably be expected, and I was there all day, and there still an hour after his last round had been made. Every time he came in sight my heart beat furiously; and as the short official note on the knocker came nearer and nearer, I strove in vain to resist the temptation to run down-stairs and await him at the front door. Every man on that beat got to know me, and I grew to be utterly ashamed of myself at last, for day after day went by, and there came no answer to my advertisement and no note from anywhere of Violet's existence. At last the week for which I had prepaid the advertisement expired. I had determined to renew my warning and entreaty if no answer came, and I waited the last part of that day with a throbbing heart. The minutes of the dull, rainy night—it was mid-April by this time—crawled slowly on, and at last I heard the belated knocker at the far end of the street, and hurried on my overcoat and hat in case I should be disappointed once again. Then I slipped down to the door, and waited in the portico. The postman knocked next door, and I was ashamed to show myself; but only a second or two later he appeared with a single letter in his hand.

"Captain Fyffe?" he asked, inquiringly, and I responding "Captain Fyffe," he handed me the letter.

The superscription was in Violet's hand. I tore it open and read, in embossed letters at the top of the first page, "Scarfell House, Richmond." Then came this:

"My Dearest,—Is the strange advertisement addressed to Violet and signed 'John of Itzia' yours? I almost think it must be, and yet I am half afraid and half ashamed to say so. But since I left town, nine days ago, I have written to you every day, and have not received a line in answer. If you will look in either the Times or the Advertiser, if the advertisement should not have been put there by yourself, you will see what I mean. I shall obey its instructions, and shall post this letter with my own hands. So far I have given my letters to my maid, and I cannot think of any reason which could induce her to be wicked enough to destroy or suppress them. This, at least, will be sure to reach you, and if my fancy is absurd, I know you well enough to trust to your forgiveness. If you are not 'John of Itzia,' I can only fear that something dreadful has happened, for I do not believe that you could be so unkind as to leave eight consecutive letters of mine unanswered by a single word. I have only just seen the advertisement by chance, and if you are at home when this arrives it ought to reach you at about nine o'clock. It is very little over an hour's drive to Richmond, and I beg you to come down at once. If the whole thing is a mistake, you have still something to explain, and must have, I am sure a great deal to tell me.

"Yours always,

"Violet."

I had no sooner read this than, with the letter crumpled in my hand, I dashed into the street and made at full-speed for the nearest cab-stand. Half a dozen whips were waved at me at once, but I walked up and down the line inspecting the horses before I would choose a vehicle. A sorrier lot of screws I never saw, but I chose the one that looked the least unpromising, and gave the driver the word for Richmond.



CHAPTER XVIII

Overjoyed as I was at the receipt of Violet's letter, and at the prospect of seeing her again, I had not been many minutes on my way before I began to feel embarrassed at the prospect of the unavoidable explanation which lay before me. I felt malevolently disposed towards the ridiculous old lady who was the cause of all this needless trouble, but I soon forgot her in the contemplation of the difficulty she had created. It was a painful and difficult thing even to mention to Violet such a charge as that against which I had to defend myself, and as the vehicle bumped along I threw myself back in the seat and gave up my whole mind to the attempt to approach it delicately, and in the way which would make it least offensive and painful to her ears.

I have said that the hacks on the cab-stand were a sorry lot, and though I had chosen the brute which looked most promising in the whole contingent, I was not long in finding that I had no special reason to be proud of my choice. Since 1848 London has grown enormously, and in those days it was possible, even with such a beast as the one my cabman drove, to be in the country within half an hour of a West End street. I knew very little of the environs of the great city, and when I woke up to a recognition of my surroundings I was in a district altogether strange to me. There were fields on either hand, and here and there the twinkling of a distant light proclaimed a probable human habitation; but there were no lamps about the road as there are nowadays, and the scene looked altogether deserted and desolate. I pulled down the window, and, putting out my head, hailed the driver, who was apparently asleep upon his box. A thin, persistent drizzle was falling, the ill-kept road was wet with recent rain, and the wretched horse was jogging along at a shuffling trot at a rate of perhaps four miles an hour.

"Wake up there," I cried, "and get along! I don't want to reach Richmond after midnight."

"All right," cabby responded, and applied the whip with such effect that for a hundred yards or so he contrived to get a decent pace out of the weary brute he drove. By this time I had fallen back once more into the perplexity of my own thoughts, but in a while I woke to the fact that we had fallen back to our old pace, and I made a new effort to stimulate the driver. He in turn made an effort to stimulate his steed, and so we went on, bumping in the shallow ruts of the road, occasionally standing still, and at our best scarcely exceeding the pace of a smart walk.

"I suppose," I asked the cabman, "that at least you know where you are going to?"

"Richmond," replied the driver. "I suppose it's Richmond, in Surrey, ain't it? There is a Richmond in Yorkshire, but you don't expect a man to drive there at this time of night?"

"When do you expect to get to the end of your journey at this rate?" I asked.

"The fact is, sir," said the driver, leaning confidentially backward, "the 'orse is tired. He's a very good 'orse when he's fresh, but 'e's been in the shafts for sixteen hours at least, and whether he'll get there at all is more than I should like to swear to. 'Ows'ever," said the cabman, "we'll do our best."

Now I was certain that Violet was awaiting my answer to her letter in some anxiety, and I myself was on fire to see her, so that this dilatory method of progress made me feel altogether miserable. We went jogging on in a sad, mournful fashion, and I made up my mind that at the first inhabited place we came to I would discharge my driver, and find either a horse or a new conveyance; and with this resolve I controlled myself with patience. By-and-by, however, after a series of extraordinary jolts and bumpings, the vehicle came to a standstill, and once more lowering the glass and putting my head out into the drizzle, I demanded to know what was the matter.

"I'm afeard, sir," said the cabman, "as I've lost my way. It's so blessed dark here, I've got off the road. All right," he cried, a second later, "I see it! You 'old on, sir, I'll be right in a minute." With this he stood up to flog the horse, and at that instant the vehicle overturned, slid rapidly down a slope, and stopped with a shock which for the moment not only drove all the breath out of my body, but all the sense out of my head. When I recovered I found my hat crushed over my eyes, and in struggling to find my feet made the unpleasant discovery that my right ankle was dislocated. I had sprained a wrist into the bargain, and under these circumstances I had great difficulty in extricating myself from the overturned vehicle. The horse was hammering with his hind-feet at the front of the carriage with a vigor surprising in a creature who had only lately shown himself so fatigued and feeble; and when at last I contrived to open one of the doors and call to the driver, I received no answer. I scrambled out painfully, and found myself scarcely able to stand. The darkness was intense; both the lamps had been broken and extinguished in the spill, and the rain was now falling with considerable violence. I called repeatedly to the driver, and groping about in the pitchy darkness on my hands and knees, I received a blow on the head from one of the frightened horse's feet, and lay for a little while quite sick and stunned. How long this sensation lasted I have no means of knowing, but when I recovered my senses I was wet through, and found myself lying among furze-bushes in a damp hollow. The horse had apparently resigned himself to the position, and lay quiet. As I struggled to my feet, with a thousand colored lights flashing before ray eyes, the darkness and silence of the night seemed filled with booming noises like those which are made by a heavy sea when the wind has fallen. I crawled about cautiously through the wet and prickly furze, and at last laid a hand upon the driver's sleeve. He was sitting with his head between his hands, and I could just make him out dimly, now that I was close upon him and certain of his presence.

"Are you hurt?" I asked. "You understand what I am saying?"

"Hurt!" he responded. "I'm as near killed as makes no matter. I thought you was done for, sir. I called out two or three times when I came to, but you never made a sign."

"I got a kick on the head," I explained. "It made me stupid for a time. Do you know where we are, or have you lost your way altogether?"

"I don't know," the man responded, with a groan. "I never drove this road before, but it strikes me we're on Barnes Common."

"Is there any house within reach?" I asked.

"How should I know?" he answered.

"Can you walk?" I asked. "I am dead lame, and cannot put one foot before another."

"I'll try," he answered, still groaning, and with an effort he scrambled to his feet. Once there he shook himself, and then began carefully to explore his person with both hands from head to foot; kneeling on the ground there I could see him more clearly against the lowering sky, and when, after a prolonged examination of himself, he drew up his figure and stretched his arms, I could see that he was fairly recovered from the shock his fall had given him.

"Can you walk?" I asked again, this time with a little touch of impatience. He answered that he thought he could, and began to stamp about the wet grass to assure himself that his limbs were still serviceable. "Mark this place well," I told him. "Find the road again, and go for help. Don't leave me here all night."

The man promised to be back as soon as possible, and set off at a stumbling walk. I shouted to him from time to time, he answering, and at length I learned that he had found the road.

"Keep your heart up, governor!" he called, finally. "I'll be back as soon as ever I can," and with that he left me.

For a long time, or for what seemed a long time then, I could hear his heavy boots crunching on the gravel and loose pebbles of the roadway, and then, except for the low voices of the rain and wind, and the heavy breathing of the horse, complete silence reigned. I had been in worse case many a time, and have been since; and I set myself to make the best of things. The wind was rising and bringing the cold rain down in a fierce slant, and the first thing I did was to crawl to the lee side of the overturned four-wheeler, which lay wheels upward, securely wedged into a hollow. There was a little hillock, against one side of which it had rested, which was free from the prickly furze, and, all things considered, made no bad resting-place. The wrenched ankle pained me severely, but I was dazed by the blow on the head, and had more difficulty in fighting against an inclination to sleep or swoon than in enduring that discomfort. In spite of all my efforts, all knowledge of surrounding objects faded away at times, and I passed into a momentary oblivion, though a twinge from the injured ankle always swiftly recalled me to myself. In a while I remembered that I had my cigar-case in my pocket, together with a box of those old-fashioned brown paper fusees which were commonly used by smokers at that time. I had only one hand available, and it cost me a good deal of trouble to get at that bit of solace and companionship; but when I had lit a cigar, and had coiled myself into the most comfortable posture I could find, I felt more patient than before, and smoked away for half an hour or so in a tranquillity more or less enforced. I listened keenly all the time, and anybody who has ever tried the experiment knows how that act retards the slow passage of the moments at any time of anxiety and pain. If anybody thinks that an old campaigner is making much of a very slight accident, I shall ask him to remember the circumstances under which it occurred. I had been bitterly anxious the whole week, uncertain of the whereabouts of the lady who loved me, and whom I loved with all my soul, imagining, in a fashion which seemed contrary to my own nature, a hundred thousand misfortunes, and suffering more in mind than I can ever have the ability to express in words. And now, just as I had come to a knowledge of where to find her, with the note from her dear hand still near my heart, and with the knowledge in my mind that every fruitless minute spent there would be full of weariness and doubt to her, I was as effectually stopped by this trumpery overturn as if it had been the most serious disaster in the world. My cigar was smoked out, and, after a long pause, I lit another. Sometimes the mere act of listening as intently as I did made me imagine noises in my neighborhood, and I called out frequently on the mere chance of these sounds being real. Little by little the cold and wet began to take effect upon me. I grew more and more heavy with it, and at last, with the second cigar still alight between my lips, I fell fast asleep, and lay there unconscious of the wind and rain, and knowing nothing of my own bodily inconveniences. How long this lasted I never had an opportunity of knowing, but I was awakened at last by the grasp of a hand upon my shoulder, and tried to rise, half-blinded by the dazzling rays of a lantern, which was swinging close before me. There were a dozen men upon the ground, attracted by the story the driver had told, and among them was a local medical man, who had had the old-fashioned prescience to charge a big flask with brandy. I was glad enough to get a pull at its contents, and the doctor having gone carefully over me and pronounced that no bones were broken, I was lifted with a good deal of trouble into his dog-cart, and at my own request was driven on to Richmond. It was long after midnight when we got there, but after a good deal of knocking and ringing we made our way into the Talbot Hotel, where I secured a comfortable bedroom; and when my sprained wrist and dislocated ankle had been put into cold compasses by the doctor, I was got to bed. I passed an uneasy night, afflicted mainly by the thought of Violet's bewilderment about me, and in the morning I scrawled a note to her, telling her where I was, and asking her to send me word that she had received my message. I was more damaged than I had fancied, and the mere writing of the letter with my injured hand was a tough task. The messenger I despatched knew Scarfell House, and told me that it had been bought by General Sir Arthur Rollinson a dozen years ago, but had lately been very rarely used, though an old house-keeper and a general servant were always left in charge of the place. The man came back in an hour, and to my annoyance and surprise told me that Miss Rossano had left at an early hour that morning. Lady Rollinson had driven down from London in great apparent haste, and had taken the young lady back to town with her. I lay raging and helpless half the day, not knowing what to do in this unexpected posture of affairs; but at length, being myself unable to move, and unlikely, according to the doctor's statement, to leave my room for a week to come, I resolved, as a last resource, on sending a message to Hinge, on taking him completely into my confidence, and setting him to work to find out in what direction Lady Rollinson had spirited her ward.

It was late in the afternoon before he came, and the good fellow was full of sympathy about my accident, and was disposed to stop and nurse me through the effects of it. But when he had once learned the facts of the case he took up my business with an almost romantic fervor.

"You lay your life, sir," said Hinge, "I'll find her. There's no go-betweens as 'll get any letter for the young lady out o' my hands. All right, sir; you write the letter, and you trust me to see as it gets to the proper quarter."

Hinge's devotion and loyalty did me good, and when I had struggled through with the letter and had confided it to his care, I felt easier and more hopeful. Hinge's first movement was up to London, and thence he returned to me within half a dozen hours with the dispiriting intelligence that Lady Rollinson and Violet had left town together an hour before his arrival without leaving any instructions as to the forwarding of letters. Hinge, in his occasional visits to the house, had contrived to get on very excellent terms with a pretty parlor-maid, who had given him voluntarily all the information she had at her command. The only definite bit of news he brought was that the ladies had driven to Euston Station; and though that fact opened up, then, a vista of inquiry far less wide than it would to-day, it was still possible to go to so many places, and I had so little to guide me as to their intentions, that the news left me in a perfect fog of despair, However, Hinge, in obedience to my instructions, went to Euston, and attempted there to find out for what place tickets had been taken; but he came back next morning to report his complete non-success, and was evidently a good deal dashed and dispirited by his own failure.

"Never you mind, sir," said Hinge, with outside stoutness, "we'll find 'em yet."

The poor fellow did his best to keep me cheerful, but between bodily pain and suspense, and the sense of my own helplessness, I am afraid he found me rather difficult to manage.

A week had gone by, and I was so far recovered that I could limp about the room. The doctor had found it necessary to warn me more than once that I was retarding my recovery by my own eagerness, and that unless I would consent to absolute repose I might not improbably do myself a life-long injury; but I could feel the injured ankle growing firmer, and I was resolute to try the search next day myself.

Since the complete failure of his enterprise, Hinge had devoted himself entirely to nursing me; and he had been so assiduous in his attentions that I was surprised to find him absent when I called for him. At this time I was liable to be unduly excited by almost anything, and as his absence continued hour after hour, I lashed myself into a condition of wild anxiety. I was convinced that nothing but his interest for my welfare could have kept him away from me so long, and I was certain in my own mind that he had found a clew of some sort. It was seven o'clock in the evening when he came back at last, and my first glance at his face told me that something of importance had transpired.

"Where have you been all day?" I asked.

"Do you think, sir," Hinge returned, with a face and voice of mystery—"do you think, sir, as you'll be able to get about to-morrow? If you can, I'll show you something."

"Speak out plainly and at once, there's a good fellow," I responded.

"Well, sir," said Hinge, "I've found out something." He was like a narrow-necked bottle whenever he had anything which he was eager to communicate, and I knew by experience that it was worse than useless to try to hasten the stream he had to give.

"Give me my pipe," I said, "and get on as fast as you can."

"I've found out something," Hinge repeated. "I've been surprised in my time, sir, but I never was knocked so much of a heap as I have been this afternoon." I lit my pipe and waited for him, controlling impatience as best I might. "Now who in the name of wonder, sir," said Hinge, "do you think is down here colloguing together?"

"How should I know?" I asked, groaning with impatience.

"I was a-walking up the 'ill, sir," said Hinge, "towards the Star and Garter this morning, just to get a breath of fresh air, when you told me as I might go out for half an hour. You remember as you'd given me leave, sir?"

"Yes, yes!" I answered. "Go on with your story."

"Well, sir," said Hinge, "you might have knocked me over with a feather, for coming down the 'ill arm in arm I see the Honorable Mr. Brunow and that there Sacovitch. They was talking together that interested they didn't notice me. Now Mr. Brunow, 'e knows me, sir, if Sacovitch doesn't, and I thought, after all as had happened, it might be worth my while to see what they was up to and not to be seen myself; so I just slips off the roadway behind a house as is a-build-ing on the right-'and side, and right in front of me they stops. I could hear 'em talking, but I couldn't make out what they was a-saying, till all of a sudden Mr. Brunow says, ''Ere she is,' 'e says, just like that, sir—' 'Ere she is,' as if they was a-waiting for somebody. In 'arf a minute up drives the Baroness Bonnar in a carriage, with a lady a-sitting beside her. The two gentlemen takes off their 'ats, and they all shakes hands together, and then Mr. Brunow and Mr. Sacovitch gets into the carriage, and they all drives off together." He stopped there with such an air of triumph and perspicacity that I was angry with him. Certainly the news that Brunow was about again was interesting, and might perhaps be useful. But that, being at large, he should be in the companionship of the baroness and the Austrian police spy was not at all by itself surprising, and Hinge had the air of one who had discovered a wonder.

"Is that all?" I asked him.

"No, sir," said Hinge, "that's only the beginning. They drives off through the park, turning the carriage round directly the gentlemen gets into it. They drove as slow as slow could be, just at a lazy kind of walk, sir; and when they was a little bit of a distance off I ventures to follow 'era. Their four heads was that close together you might have covered them with one hat, but of course I never dare venture near enough to find out what they was a-talking about. They drove about for two or three hours, and I kep' 'em in sight all the while-At one time the Baroness Bonnar and the other lady, they gets down to feed the deer from a paper-bag of biscuits, and the gentlemen strolled about smoking cigars. Then they all four gets together again just as eager and as busy as ever. I could see 'em a-talking and a-arguing like mad, and I was just wild myself to know what it was all about, sir, but of course I couldn't get a-nigh of 'em. Finally," said Hinge, "after two or three hours, they drives back to the Star and Garter, and goes in there. I found out, sir," he went on, with a growing air of importance which, considering the triviality of the intelligence he had so far brought me, was hard to bear with—"I found out, sir, as they'd ordered lunch; but I didn't likes to leave 'em without knowing what they was up to, and so I 'ung about, sir. That comes easy, sir," said Hinge, "to a man as 'as been used to barrack life. I 'ung about, and in the course of an hour or more they comes out very jolly, and drives into the park again, and all the morning's business over again. Well, sir, having gone on so long, I didn't like to be put off; and I determined, as a man might say, to see the finish of it. It come, sir, and it come sooner than I expected. They drives back about four o'clock, just as it was beginning to get towards dusk, and they leaves the carriage at the Star and Garter, and they all walks down the 'ill together, the two ladies in front and the two gentlemen behind. I followed, sir, at a respectful distance, and they roams on quite gay and easy for a good mile and a 'arf, and at last they drops down by the river-side on a little cottage. The dusk was falling fast, sir, and I was able to get nearer to them than I had been. I was within twenty yards of them when they all went in together. If you can get out to-morrow, sir, you can see the cottage, and you'll see where I got to. It's just right over the river, and there's a bit of what they used to call a veranda when I was in Bombay, sir. It's right over the river, the veranda is, and I clomb onto it, and through the Venetian blind I see the 'ole party. I was just a-peeping in when Sacovitch comes along and throws the window open, just as if he'd wanted me to hear what they was a-saying. 'And now,' says he, 'it's all ready, ain't it?'"

I suppose I shifted in my chair at this, and turned round with a look of some eagerness and interest, for Hinge, in his excitement, laid his hand upon my shoulder and begged me not to hurry him.

"Don't you 'urry me, sir, if you please. I'm a coming to it now, and I think before I've done you'll say, sir, as I've got it. 'And now,' says Sacovitch, 'it's all ready, ain't it.' The baroness was standing there close by the table. There was decanters on the table, and a lot of soda-water bottles. She 'elps herself and the other lady to a brandy-and-soda, and says she, just as she let the cork fly, 'Yes,' she says, 'I think you've got it.' I'd 'ave give a guinea at that minute," said Hinge, "to know what they'd got, but I never thought I should till Mr. Brunow gets up and says, just at that minute, 'Let's see exactly where we stand,' 'e says. 'Very well,' says Sacovitch; 'it's like this. Now listen, all of you,' 'e says, 'for these is the final instructions.'"

I moved again, half rising from my seat, but Hinge waved a protesting hand against me.

"For God's sake, sir, don't 'urry me! I'm at it now, and you shall have it all in half a minute, sir. 'It's like this,' says Sacovitch; 'we know,' he says, 'that Miss Rossano has drawn that forty thousand pounds. What that forty thousand pounds is for,' he says, 'is thoroughly well beknown to all of you. There's Colonel Quorn,' he says—Did you ever 'ear of Colonel Quorn, sir?"

"Yes, yes!" I answered. "Go on with your story."

"'There's Colonel Quorn,' 'e says, 'lying off Civita Vecchia with the count on board 'is ship with the arms and ammunition.' Now I'm a-coming to it, sir; don't you stop me. Such a wicked plot you never heard in all your life. 'The count's on board,' he says, 'and the arms is on board. The count won't land until he gets both arms and ammunition. Colonel Quorn won't 'hand over neither arms nor ammunition,' he says, 'until he gets that forty thousand pounds. The very minute he gets that money he hands it over to Colonel Quorn, he gets the arms, and he lands. But now, mind you,' says Sacovitch, 'there's this to be considered: the count won't trust his foot on Italian soil, arms or no arms,' he says, 'after what's happened to him, unless he's sure of meeting his friends when he get's there. Now what's got to be done,' says he, 'is to time the delivery of the money. That money mustn't be paid until we've got our people ready. The count won't land until he thinks he's safe, and we must take jolly good care,' says Sacovitch, ''e don't land until we're ready,' he says. 'To be a day too soon on the one side, or a day too late on the other,' he says, 'would wreck us all. And mind you,' he says, 'the Austrian government puts more importance onto this affair than anything else as is happening just at present. They'd sooner pay a million pounds,' he says (I'm giving you his very words, sir)—' they'd sooner pay a million pounds,' he says, 'than miss the Count Rossano."

In spite of my lame foot I was pacing about the room by this time, altogether too eager to control myself longer to physical quietude.

"And then," said Hinge, "this come out, and this is what I want to tell you. Says Sacovitch to the other lady: 'You bring your messenger,' says he, 'at this time to-morrow here, and I'll give him his last instructions.'"



CHAPTER XIX

My story until now has dragged a lingering length along, but from this point onward it moves swiftly to its close. In the haste I feel to reach that close I strive to obliterate from my mind whatever came between the hour of Hinge's revelation and the hour of the appointment. The task is not easy, for the four-and-twenty hours that intervened were filled with a suspense and anxiety of no common sort. The night passed, as even the most anxious of nights will pass; the day succeeding it crawled on, as even the dreariest of days will crawl; and at last the hour arrived. When, aided by Hinge on one side and by a stout walking-stick on the other, I left the hotel, the night was already dark, and once more a heavy rain was falling. Hinge had secured a vehicle, which carried us to within a hundred yards of our destination, and was there discharged. There was a lamp at either end of the brief lane in which the river-side cottage stood, and we could see that the road was diverted. There was still a chance that the traitors who were plotting against us might keep watch, and we slipped into the garden with some little trepidation. Once within the gate, I made a circuit of the house to assure myself that there was no chance of our being observed, and finding the whole field clear, I climbed, with Hinge's aid, onto the balcony. We had found the whole land in front of the house in darkness, and only a single room on the river-side was illuminated. Hinge touched me on the elbow, and with a forward finger indicated the lighted window, and motioned me on. I went crouching with a stealthy step until I came on a level with the window, and then, kneeling on the wet boards of the veranda, I found within eyeshot Brunow, the baroness, Sacovitch, and Constance Pleyel. The two men were smoking, wine was set out upon the table, and four glasses were filled. The whole party had an air of Bohemian ease and jollity. They were talking together, and I could see Sacovitch pacing the room with great vehemence of gesture; but though I could hear the deep murmur of his voice, and could even ascertain that he was speaking in English with a foreign accent, I could not succeed, strain my ears as I might, in making out the burden of a consecutive sentence. Hinge was crouching at my side, his shoulder touching mine. The rain dripped from the upper part of the house onto the shelving roof of the veranda with a monotonous and incessant noise which drowned the voices within at critical moments, so that we caught no more than detached words. All of a sudden I felt Hinge's hand on my wrist, and at that second a step crunched on the gravel between the gate and the door of the house. Then a bell tinkled faintly, and we both saw the whole quartet turn with varying expressions of waiting and attention. Then the door of the room opened and a servant appeared, explaining in dumb show, so far as we were concerned, but to our perfect understanding, that a visitor had arrived. I saw Brunow wave permission to the visitor to enter, and understood quite clearly what was going on, though at this moment the pattering of the rain and the sudden sigh of the wind robbed my ears of even the murmur of his voice. The servant retired, leaving the door open, and the quartet of conspirators bent towards each other while Sacovitch spoke. I watched the movement of his forefinger and the motion of his lips. The glint of his eye, the elevation of his brow, and the inclination of his head towards the open door all meant caution, and I could tell as clearly as if I had heard his words that he was taking upon himself the burden and responsibility of an approaching interview. An instant later the servant reappeared, laying a needless hand upon the door and swaying it open by a superfluous inch or two as he introduced the visitor.

"Roncivalli!" whispered Hinge, in a tone of unutterable amazement as the man came in.

I thought myself prepared for anything; but the presence of such a man in such company astonished me profoundly. Roncivalli was one of the most trusted of our committee, an Italian pur sang, a man whose family had suffered from Austrian misrule for half a century back. He represented a house which had been rich and noble, and had been persecuted into nothingness. No man had been louder in denunciation of the Austrian cruelty, no man apparently more sincere. There never lived a man who had more reason for sincerity. My first impression was that he must be spying upon the spies, for my opinion of his patriotism had been so lofty, that next to the Count Rossano and poor old Ruffiano, whom Brunow had betrayed, I should have counted him the last man in all the Italian ranks to be bought by Austrian gold.

He came in, hat in hand, with a sweeping salute to the ladies, and tossing his sombrero on the sofa, dripping wet as it was, unbuttoned with both hands a paletot shining with rain, and displayed himself in evening-dress, with a big jewel shining in the centre of his shirt-front, after a fashion which became popular a score of years later. Sacovitch stepped forward to help him divest himself of his cloak; and when it was slipped from his shoulders he held it with one hand, groping in the pockets from one side to the other, and in the meantime nodded round with a smiling air, with an allusion which I understood a second later when he held up a long Virginian cigar. Miss Pleyel and the baroness bowed, and Roncivalli set his cigar over the lamp until one end of it became incandescent. Then he began to smoke, and at a wave from Miss Pleyel's hand took an arm-chair close to the window. The baroness rose from her seat and poured out wine for him. Motions of hand and eye, change of feature, and movement of lip indicated an animated social converse, but not a word of it all reached my ears. I was just meditating on Hinge's luck in the fact that on the occasion of his watch the conspirators had thrown open the window as if on purpose that he should secure a hearing of their deliberations, when the baroness put her hand to her round white throat, with an exaggerated gesture of oppression, and then waved it towards the window. Sacovitch bowed and rose from his place. I laid a hand on Hinge, impelling him downward as the Austrian police spy walked towards the window. We each glued ourselves to the wall, and prostrated ourselves on the rainy wood-work of the veranda walk. We heard the grating sound of the window as it rose; and the mingled voices of the people inside—all five speaking together—came out with a gush, and brought such anticipatory joy and triumph to my heart as I had never felt before.

"Let us make sure," said Roncivalli, in a laughing tone. "We have important business to discuss—at least, I am advised so—and it would be just as well to be certain that we are not overheard." He raised the Venetian blind by the cord, and for a moment the rattle sounded as disturbing to the nerves as anything I can remember. But I heard Sacovitch say:

"The veranda looks upon the river. There is nobody within hearing."

"We will see, in any case," Roncivalli responded, and with that he thrust his head between the window-sill and the blind, and peeped out into the river. The lamplight took him from behind and illuminated the tips and edges of his hair, his beard, and his mustache, so that they shone bright gold, though he was a man of darkish complexion. As he turned his head sideways the white of his eye gleamed like an opal, and bending suddenly he looked downward, seeming to stare me in the face so intently that I did not even dare to breathe. I was so absolutely certain that he would give an alarm that it came upon me with a shock of relief beyond description when he drew his head back into the room, and said that everything was clear.

"That is a relief," said the baroness; "but with all you gentlemen smoking, I was afraid that I should faint."

"So?" said Sacovitch, with an altogether insolent disregard in his inquiry. "Let us get to business."

"I am ready," Roncivalli answered, throwing himself anew into the arm-chair.

"A moment," said a voice, which I recognized as Constance Pleyel's; "it is very well to have the window open, but all the same we need not catch our death of cold. Will you be good enough, Signor Roncivalli, to lower the blind."

The signor arose and obeyed her, and as he did so I could see his long figure between me and the whitewashed, lamplit ceiling of the room. Before another word was spoken Hinge touched me again upon the elbow, and I knew at once the meaning of his signal. We rose, both of us, silently to our knees, and each found a crevice through which he could command a view of the occupants of the room.

"The first thing, I take it," said Sacovitch, "is to decide that the negotiations we are about to conclude are not likely to be broken by any betrayal on either side."

"So far as I am concerned," said Roncivalli, "my being here is guarantee enough. I am not risking my life for nothing, or, if I am, I shall know the reason why."

At this moment Brunow broke in with an Italian-sounding phrase, and the baroness interrupted him.

"Speak English," she said. "Herr Sacovitch has no Italian, and Miss Pleyel no German. English is the one language which is understood by all of us, and we may just as well have everything open and above-board."

With one eye glued to the lower interstice of the Venetian blind, I saw the quintet all bowing and bobbing to each other at this with a Judas politeness which was altogether charming to look at. Roncivalli, with his back half turned towards me, was so near that I could have taken him by the hair. A little removed from him, on the right, sat the baroness, in a captivating little bonnet and gloves of pearl gray, smoothing one hand over the other on her silk-clad knees with a purring satisfaction in the charm of her own attire. At her side sat poor Constance Pleyel with a wineglass in her left hand, looking into its last spot or two as drearily as if she contemplated the dregs of her own wasted and weary life. Beyond her again, and almost facing me, just seen across Roncivalli's shoulders, sat Brunow, smoking at his ease, and toying with his eyeglass with the fingers of both hands. Sacovitch stood upright, his cigar balanced between his first and second fingers, dominating, or seeking to dominate, the whole party.

"I especially desire," he said, in his strong German accent, and ticking off on his left forefinger every important syllable, with such emphasis that he scattered the ashes of his cigar into his own wineglass—"I especially desire that Signor Roncivalli should understand with extreme definiteness that there is no escape from the position which he has elected to assume."

"No fear of me, my friend," Roncivalli answered. The liquid Italian played against the German guttural like the warble of a flute answering the snarl of a violoncello. "I am doing what I know. Until our friend Rossano came to England I had a place from which he was good enough to depose me. You may say what you like, Herr Sacovitch, but the independence of my country is secure. Italy wins; and I desire Italy to win. I will help you to your Count Rossano if you want him, and if you will pay me for it, because I hate him, and because he is in my way. But Italy wins, all the same."

There was a candor about this which I could appreciate, but Sacovitch turned upon his purchased traitor with something very like a snarl.

"Understand," he said, in his thick German-English, "that I buy you or I do not buy you. Whether I buy you or not, you are sold already. Our last talk was overheard by a fellow-committeeman of yours, who is in my pay, and who will go back to his old patriotism, or come to me, exactly as I tell him."

"I am here for a service," responded Roncivalli "I will do one thing for you, as I have told you all along, and I will do no more. I will give you the Count Rossano, who is in my way, and I will not give you any real chance over Italy for anything you may offer me. I will take your money because I want it, and I will serve your turn because it suits me. How I reconcile these matters with my own conscience is my own affair."

"Your conscience is your own," Sacovitch answered; "the question of your conduct is our consideration. I want you only to understand that a single false move on either side—" He took a deep pull at his cigar there, and made a purposed pause for effect. "I think, ladies and gentlemen, you will agree with me that I do not exaggerate. Swerve an inch to right or left," he added, "and you lose your life."

Roncivalli's flute-like voice followed the troubled grumble of the German's threat.

"I know my business, Herr Sacovitch, as well as you know yours. I can serve your turn and I can serve my own. Give me what I ask, and you may have the Count Rossano. But if you think that in betraying the man who has usurped my place I betray my cause, you are very much mistaken. So long as Count Rossano is at liberty, it is not worth your while to trap so inconsiderable a person as myself. When once he is in your hands I shall be a great deal too wise to give you the chance of seizing me. When I fight, I shall fight openly—against Austria," he added, with a laugh.

"Miss Rossano," said Sacovitch, "drew the forty thousand pounds yesterday, and it now lies in the hands of Lady Rollinson. You will go to Southampton by the first train in the morning, accompanied by the Baroness Bonnar, who will introduce you to her English ladyship. Lady Rollinson is in direct communication with the Count Rossano, and will be able to give you a meeting-place at which you will hand over the money to the count. Mr. Brunow and the baroness will accompany you, and will undertake to see that the money is delivered. Any one of you may act as intermediaries between the Count Rossano and the forces on shore; but it must be definitely understood that the count is, under no circumstances, to be allowed to land until our own side is ready."

"That is clear enough," answered Roncivalli.

"Let me be clearer still,"-said Sacovitch, turning upon him with a menacing look. "In a case like this, many things have to be provided for. It is quite possible that it may seem worth your while to play for forty thousand pounds."

"Not at all," said Roncivalli, tranquilly.

"It is assuredly not worth your while," the Austrian returned. "This enterprise is in my hands, and it has never been my practice to leave any of my agents unwatched. I shall not tell you who will watch you, or who in turn will watch him; but it will save possible trouble if you should understand that from the moment at which you leave, until the Count Rossano is in our hands, you will be under my observation and control as definitely as you are at this moment."

"All this," replied Roncivalli, "is a waste of words. I have undertaken this piece of work for my own purpose, and for my own purpose I shall carry it through. When the work is done I shall go my own way, as I have always told you. I am to have the pleasure of your society, madame," he continued, turning to the baroness. "That is charming, and will beguile a journey which might otherwise be tedious. What is the hour of the train's departure?"

Sacovitch drew out a pocket-book, and, extracting a loose leaf from it, handed it to him.

"You will find all your instructions there: the train, the hotel at which Lady Rollinson is staying, and the boat. Mr. Brunow has my certificate to the captain of the boat, who will place himself at your service at any hour."

"Buono!" said the Italian, folding the paper with a flourish, and bestowing it in his breast-pocket. "Is there anything more?"

"That is all," said Sacovitch. "I think we understand each other, and we could do no more than that if we talked till midnight."

"In that case," said Roncivalli, rising, "until tomorrow, madame. Until to-morrow, Mr. Brunow." He took up his paletot from the chair onto which he had thrown it on his entrance, and threw it over his shoulder. Then he took his hat, and with a half-theatrical bow all round, and a smile at Sacovitch, he left the room. The hall-door banged a few seconds later, and his footstep sounded on the gravel of the path and then died away.

"I am not quite sure that I trust that fellow," Sacovitch said a minute later. "It will be your business to keep a strict eye upon him."

"Have no fear," said the baroness. "He shall be well watched."

There was more talk, but it had no interest for me, though I still listened intently in the hope of learning more. In a quarter of an hour or thereabouts the servant was called in, and received instructions to bring the baroness's carriage, which appeared to be put up at a hotel while the conference was being held. She and Brunow and Constance were, it appeared, going back to town together, and I learned incidentally that the cottage had been rented by Sacovitch for his own purposes, as affording a more convenient and secret meeting-place than any he could find in London. Directly the servant had received his orders I gave Hinge a sign, and with infinite precautions we climbed from the veranda to the garden, and thence made our way on tip-toe, like a pair of thieves, to the roadway.

"They're a nice old lot, sir, ain't they?" said Hinge, when we had walked a hundred yards in silence.

I quieted him by returning no answer, and we walked on without another word until I had reached my own chamber. By this time I had quite made up my mind as to the line it was my duty to adopt, and wheresoever it led me I was resolved to follow. I gave Hinge my purse, and instructed him to pay the bill, to pack up my belongings, and to be ready to catch the first train into town. He was full of wonderment and conjecture, but, like the old soldier he was, he obeyed without inquiry. When I arrived at my own rooms I sat down and wrote a statement of the whole truth, as brief and concise as I could make it, and copied it four or five times over; and armed with these documents, I drove to the addresses of such men as I knew where to find among our societaires. Under ordinary circumstances, since the count's departure and the betrayal of poor old Ruffiano, I should have gone to Roncivalli; but now that he was turned traitor I had to rely upon my own limited information, which served me very awkwardly. I had calculated beforehand on the chance that I might not find any one of the men I sought at home, and my worst forebodings were fulfilled. I left in each case my written statement, and before I returned to my own rooms I had delivered them all. The unfortunate part of the business was, as I knew full well, that hardly a man among them could read English, and in almost every case the recipient of my letter would have to seek a translator before he could find me. I knew, on the other hand, that if once the statement I had made reached the intelligence of any one Italian patriot, the news would spread like wildfire, and that, if I needed them, a hundred men would be at my disposal to check the treason meditated by Roncivalli and Brunow. In each epistle I besought the receiver to follow me without delay to Southampton, and I undertook to wire to each the address at which I might be found, and begged him, in case he should follow immediately, to make arrangements to have that address rewired.

All this being done, I sat down and wrote out a fuller statement of the case for Violet's reading, if ever I should again be so happy as to find the chance of placing it in her hands. This occupied me until an hour after midnight. I went to bed, leaving with Hinge the responsibility of awaking me in time for the first train next morning to Southampton. When we reached the railway station I caught a glimpse of Roncivalli and Brunow and the baroness; but this was no more than I had expected, and it cost me but little trouble to evade them. We reached Southampton without adventure, and I kept my place in the railway carriage until Hinge reported to me that they had left the platform. Then I ventured after them in a fly, and having seen them all enter a hotel together, I made a note of its name and position in my mind, and took a little drive into the country before returning. When I got back and procured rooms, my heart leaped as I signed the visitors' book, for at the top of the page on which I wrote I saw the names of Lady Rollinson, Miss Rossano and maid. It cost me an effort to put the question with untroubled face and voice, but I asked the servant who conducted me to my room if Miss Rossano were still staying in the house. He answered uninterestedly that he did not know the lady. But when I mentioned her as Lady Rollinson's companion, he recalled her to mind.

"No, sir," he said; "the lady stayed in the house the night before last, but she went away with her maid yesterday morning."

As to when she would return, or as to the direction she had taken at the time of her departure, he could tell me nothing. And so, as fate would have it, I was left in the ignorance and uncertainty which had perplexed me from the first. A minute's interview with Violet would, of course, have put an end to the danger of the situation, but in her absence I felt as powerless here as I had been in London. I was on the scene of action, but so long as Lady Rollinson retained her absurd suspicions, I could not approach the actors and actresses in the scene of tragedy which grew every moment more threatening and more imminent.

Hinge was so far in my confidence already that I had not much difficulty in laying before him all my hopes and fears. I wrote an urgent note to Lady Rollinson, and sent it by his hand, instructing him to deliver it to her ladyship personally. I read it over to him when it was completed, and at the end of every sentence he nodded assent to it.

"Dear Lady Rollinson," I wrote, "you have engaged to pay into the hands of Signor Roncivalli a sum of forty thousand pounds, to be handed to Count Rossano. Before you do this I beseech you solemnly to give me a moment's interview. The payment of that money will result in the count's betrayal to the Austrians. You know what he has suffered already, and you know how little mercy he can look for at their hands if they should once more succeed in getting hold of him. I beg you, for his sake, and for the sake of Violet, whom I know you love, to give me an interview of five minutes only. You may question the bearer of this note, who will tell you everything, and you may rely upon his knowledge and discretion. If you are still determined not to see me, I shall be quite content that you should learn the truth from him. But I beg you, by everything you hold dear, not to disregard my warning. Count Rossano is in peril of the gravest sort, and if you should hand Miss Ros-sano's gift to him without inquiry, you may sign his death-warrant, and will certainly give yourself grounds for the bitterest self-reproaches you have ever known."

Hinge undertook, with a full sense of the responsibility which rested upon him, to deliver this letter, and went away with it; but in ten minutes he came back with the envelope unopened.

"I got to 'er ladyship," he said; "but the minute I told 'er where I came from she threw the letter on the table and told me to bring it back again. I tried my best, sir, but she wouldn't listen to me. She ordered me out of the room, sir; and when I tried to tell 'er what the matter was, she rung the bell and walked out. You can't follow a lady into 'er bedroom, sir; and say what I would I couldn't get 'er to let me get a word in edgeways. A servant comes up in answer to the ring, and 'er ladyship, from inside 'er bedroom, says, 'Waiter, request that man to leave my room, and see as 'e don't trouble me no more.'"

"Where are Lady Rollinson's rooms?" I asked him, desperately.

"They're in this corridor, sir," Hinge answered; "at the far end, numbers 38, 39, and 40."

I snatched up the letter, strode along the corridor, and knocked at the middle door of the suite. Lady Rollinson herself answered my summons, and before I could speak a word slammed the door indignantly in my face and turned the key. I heard the bolt shoot in the lock, and a second later an angry peal at the bell sounded. I stood there, altogether irresolute and disconsolate. A waiter came flying up the stairs, and, bustling past me, knocked at the door.

"Who's there?" cried her ladyship's voice from within. "Send the manager to me. Tell him that I am being persecuted, and that I demand his protection."

What was a man to do in a case of that kind? I could simply retire to my own apartments; but I did it in such a passion of wrath and impotence that I could have taken that stupid and credulous old woman by the shoulders and shaken her to reason. I was too angry and disheartened to speak a word; but while I was pacing up and down the room, and wondering what my next move should be, the manager of the hotel presented himself, with a message from Lady Rollinson.

"It is no affair of mine, sir," said the man, who was extremely polite and business-like; "but the lady declares that she will not see you on any account, or receive any communication from you. I am to tell you that if you persist in attempting to see her she will leave the hotel. I can't afford to have my customers troubled in this way, and I must ask you to go."

I told him I should decline to go. I asked him to sit down, and I related to him the whole story, so far as it was necessary that any outside person should hear it, in order that he might judge of the situation. The man became interested, and even in a way sympathetic.

"It's a very curious case; sir," he admitted; "but I can't allow my customers to be disturbed, all the same. If I were in your place, sir," he added, "I should appeal to the police."

This advice was so hopelessly astray from the point that I dismissed the man, though I had to promise him that Lady Rollinson should suffer no further annoyance. Hinge was hard to pacify, for in his loyalty to me and the affection that had grown up between us, he was almost as much interested as I was, and he kept breaking in with a "Look 'ere, sir, this is Captain Fyffe, my master. It was him as rescued Count Rossano from the fortress of Itzia—you must have seen it in the papers." The man was got rid of at last, and the promise was given. And now there was nothing to be done but to await the arrival of some one or two of the patriotic societaires from London. Even in the extremity at which things had arrived, I more than half dreaded their coming. If they came at all, they would come with a full knowledge of the facts, and their arrival meant nothing less than murder. It would have been the wildest of dreams to suppose for an instant that any one of them would allow his beloved chief to be handed over to the Austrians at any cost; and though I was willing to pay almost any price to save the count, I had a horror of bloodshed in a case like that.

"Let us leave no stone unturned," I said to Hinge.

"I will go to the railway station to meet any friends of mine that may arrive, and in the meantime you can go to the docks and ascertain what vessels sail for any Italian port to-morrow. Find out if it is possible for me to get berths aboard the boat by which Brunow and Roncivalli sail."

"You trust me, sir," Hinge returned; "I'll do my best."

We parted for an hour or so. My waiting at the station came to nothing, and when Hinge returned he had no news worth the telling. The regular liners were all known, and had been easy enough to find. He had learned by cunning inquiry that luggage had been taken that evening aboard a craft whose destination v was unknown, and he had had her pointed out to him. When he had pulled out into the harbor to speak the craft, he had been warned away by a man who either could not understand him or refused to do so. It was not in itself a suspicious or remarkable thing that a stranger should not have been allowed to board a foreign craft after dark, but in the circumstances it was enough to make me believe that this was the ship by which the traitorous party was to sail. To be so near, to know so much, and yet to be so helpless was downright maddening.

"Once the money is in the hands of those wretches," I said, "once they are away, the count is doomed. That headstrong old woman is throwing away her niece's fortune to betray her niece's father; and if she knew what she was doing she would sooner put her own right hand in the fire."

"If I was you, sir," Hinge responded, "I shouldn't let her do it."

"You wouldn't?" I responded.

"No, sir," said Hinge; "I wouldn't."

"And how would you prevent it?" I asked. I spoke eagerly, for I could not help thinking he had some scheme in mind.

"I don't know, sir," said Hinge; "but I shouldn't let 'er do it. I'd rouse the town agen 'em. Do you mean to tell me, sir, as any set of English people 'ud let a lot of scoundrels like them go off to sell the life of an innocent gentleman? I don't believe it. I should rouse the town."

I bade him hold his tongue and go, and for two or three hours I sat by myself, raging at my own helplessness. There is nothing so intolerable to an active mind as the sense of urgent duty confronted by impotence. And if ever circumstance in the whole history of the world yet justified a man, sane and sober, in a madman's act, I felt myself justified when the last desperate resort occurred to me.



CHAPTER XX

I said not a word; but I sat by myself, and I matured, I think, the maddest scheme that ever entered a sane man's head. Desperate diseases, as everybody knows, ask for desperate remedies, and here I do not know how it was possible for anybody to overestimate the urgency of the case. Count Rossano has gone peacefully to his rest now this many a year, but I had learned to love the man with a loyal affection and esteem, the like of which I never felt for any human creature, except my wife and my own children. It made for a good deal in my affection for him that I had been instrumental in rescuing him from that living death he had suffered for so many years, for I have found over and over again in my own experience that one of the surest ways of learning to love a man is to do him a good turn. And apart from my own affection for him, he was the very apple of Violet's eye, and my affection for her I have never been able to find words for. That her money should be employed to lure her father to destruction was a thing altogether hideous and intolerable; and when I hit upon the only method I could see to prevent so dreadful a consummation, I accepted my own madness with a tranquillity which has surprised me very often in remembering it. I thought it well, before starting on the enterprise I had in hand, to set down my purpose in writing, so that if it miscarried I might at least escape the mischief of misconstruction. So I sat down and wrote deliberately that it was my intention to rob Lady Rollinson of the sum of forty thousand pounds, intrusted to her by Miss Violet Rossano for transmission to her father. If I could have seen any other way out of it I would not have taken this; but I had searched everywhere in my own mind, and until this one extraordinary proposition disclosed itself I had been able to find no road at all. I set down in the document I wrote my purpose in this strange proceeding; I signed and sealed it in an envelope, and put it in my pocket. Then I waited until the house was quite silent, and the last waiter had shuffled along the corridor. It was one o'clock in the morning before I was satisfied that the whole house had sunk to slumber, and then I marched straight to the room in which Lady Rollinson had last decisively refused to grant me a moment's interview. I remember very well that there were three pairs of boots outside the door, that they were all new and neat and fashionable, and that I thought, as I looked at them, that in contrast with my own heavy and mud-stained footgear they looked marvellously small and delicate. I turned the handle of the door, and, to my surprise, it yielded. I found myself within a dimly-lighted room, where the main illumination was refracted in a ghostly fashion from the white ceiling, and came from the street-lamps in the square below. I closed the door behind me, and found that I had light enough to make my way about without difficulty. The room was furnished in hotel fashion, and at one wall of it stood a ghostly piano, its form revealed by mere hints of polish on its surface here and there. On the opposite side was an escritoire with writing implements, and a few scattered sheets of paper. In the centre of the room was a table, and two or three disordered chairs were scattered about the apartment. Faint as the light was, a cursory glance about the place made it evident to me that so large an amount of money as the sum I meant to steal was hardly likely to be there. There were two doors opening out of the room apart from the one by which I had entered, and I was compelled to trust to chance in my choice of the one to be next opened. I cannot in the least tell why, but I walked without hesitation to the one on my left. I tried the handle, and the door resisted me. I tried again more strenuously, and I heard a voice from the other side cry out in sleepy tones, asking who was there. I knew the voice for Lady Rollinson's.

I know very well that I am telling a queer story, but I must tell it plainly. I set my sound knee against that door and threw my whole weight with it, and in a second, with a horrible wrench at the injured wrist and ankle, I stood inside the room. A faint scream greeted me, and I saw a white figure in the act of scrambling upright in the bed.

"You will do well to be quiet," I said, and the figure sank back with a sort of moan and gurgle of astonishment. My own nerves were so overstrung already that I discerned a comedy in a situation sufficiently serious, and if I had given way to the impulse which assailed me I should have broken into a shout of unreasoning laughter. This was only a surface current, however, and I was as conscious of the serious import of my business as I am now in recalling the incidents of that incredible adventure.

"Your ladyship," I said, with that odd sense of comedy still uppermost, "will regard this as rather a curious intrusion. You have forty thousand pounds belonging to Miss Rossano, and I am here to rob you of it. I propose to do it with all delicacy; but if your ladyship will be good enough to understand me, I mean to have the money."

That she heard me I am sure, but the sole answer I received came in the shape of a muffled scream from underneath the bedclothes.

"The money," I said, "is Violet's property, and to her I shall be perfectly willing to account for it. You must tell me where it is, and I shall take it, and shall keep it until she comes to claim it." I waited, and no answer came at all. I was bubbling with subdued laughter, and fully alive at the same time to the serious side of my own position. "Where is the money?" I asked, in a voice as stern as I could make it. "Tell me, and tell me without delay!"

The blinds of the room were drawn, and even that faint illumination which had guided my steps in the sitting-room was missing here. I could see nothing but the dull gray gleam of the white counterpane and the hangings of the bed.

"Tell me at once," I said. "You may ask me for any explanation in the morning, and I will give it Where is the money?"

I waited, and a dead silence reigned. I repeated my question once, and twice, and thrice: "Where is the money?" Then I heard a muffled voice say: "Here!" I groped forward in the darkness until my hand encountered hers, and took from her grasp a chamois-leather bag, which was all crisp to the touch above and solid below.

"That will do," I said. "You have forced me to do this. You can raise an alarm if you will; I am willing to defend myself, and I have taken the only step that was left me to save the life of Violet's father."

With that I withdrew, stumbling here and there against the furniture in the thick darkness of the room. The sitting-room beyond seemed light by comparison, and the corridor, with its solitary sickly gleam of gas, was as clear as it would have been in broad daylight. I ran to my own room, and flung the bag upon the table. Then I untied the cord which bound it at the neck, and counted its contents. There were twenty notes of the Bank of England for one thousand pounds each, tied up in one little ladylike bundle with a bit of narrow pink silk ribbon. There were thirty-eight notes of five hundred pounds each, tied in the same delicate and feminine fashion. Then there were notes of one hundred and of fifty, to the value of seven hundred pounds. And at the bottom of the bag was a great loose handful of gold, all in bright sovereigns and half-sovereigns, fresh from the Mint. I estimated this little mass of coined gold at three hundred pounds; but just as I was in the act of counting it, the ring of a bell in violent motion tingled through the midnight silence of the house, and I paused. I heard a door thrown open, and an urgent voice at an incredible pitch shrieked, "Thieves!" "Murder!" Then the bell sounded again and yet again, until I heard it fall with a crash upon the stone floor of the corridor below. The wild voice, once loosed, went on shrieking, "Murder!" "Thieves!" I hurried the money I had stolen back into the bag, tied it as I had found it, and awaited the result with perfect equanimity. In less than half a minute doors were banging all over the house, and hurrying feet charged up-stairs and down-stairs. The voice of alarm never ceased for a moment. I stepped out into the corridor, and faced the manager, who was the first man to arrive upon the field.

"Lady Rollinson is alarmed," I said; "you had better send some of your women to her. I have just robbed her of forty thousand pounds, and the money is in my room."

The man glared at me with an expression of profound astonishment. Words were utterly beyond him, and he could only gasp at me.

"Tell Lady Rollinson," I continued, "that the money is quite safe. I shall surrender it to Miss Rossano, to whom it belongs, but to no other person. Now go!"

The corridor by this time was full of half-clad people, who were staring in each other's faces with the bewilderment natural to startled sleep. I returned to my own room, closing the door behind me, and awaited the progress of events. I heard excited voices outside, but could make out nothing of their purport. Thirty or forty people made a very babel of noise outside my door; but by-and-by Hinge came in, wide-eyed, in a very short night-shirt.

"I have saved the count," I said, very quietly. "There is the money which was to have betrayed him."

"Good Lord, sir," Hinge cried, "how did you get hold of it?"

"I stole it," I responded; "it was the only thing to do." While Hinge still stared at me in wordless amazement the outer door was flung open, and the manager appeared, ushering in a policeman.

"This is the man!" he cried.

"Yes," I answered, "I have not the slightest doubt that I am the man you want. You are an officer of the police?" The man said "Yes," bustling forward with a brace of handcuffs in his hand. "I claim this money," I said, laying my hand upon the bag which rested on the table. "There need be no doubt about the matter, officer. I have become illegally possessed of this, but I claim it, and I shall surrender it only to the hands of your inspector. He will keep it until its rightful owner comes to receive it."

"Lady Rollinson claims it!" cried the manager.

"Lady Rollinson," I answered, "has no more right to it than I have. This money is the property of Miss Rossano. It must be handed to her, and I have taken it in order that it may be put into the hands of the legal authorities until such time as she appears to claim it."

"I must trouble you to go with me, sir," said the officer, advancing with the handcuffs in his hand.

"I will go with you," I answered, "and I will go quite quietly on one condition: you will take charge of this."

"You bet I will!" the officer answered, facetiously; and I saw a glance pass between him and the manager which said "madman," as plainly as the spoken word itself.

I had done too much already to permit myself to be foiled at the end. I took the bag of money in both hands, and held out my wrists towards the officer.

"You will handcuff me," I said, "if you think that necessary. I shall submit to anything which you conceive to be within the limits of your duty. But I shall not part with this until I meet your inspector."

The man answered nothing, but he fettered me clumsily enough, keeping so wary an eye upon my face meanwhile that he manipulated the handcuffs without guidance, and pinched me in fixing them. I winced at this, and he got back from me as if he thought I was about to strike him.

"Ha! would ye?" he said, and laid a hand upon his truncheon. I stood still, with the handcuffs still dangling from my wrists, and the man, reassured by my manner, completed his task. The door was open, and any number of dishevelled heads and staring eyes crowded in at us.

"Let somebody find a cab," I said. "Lady Rollinson is naturally a good deal disturbed, and will not wish to make a charge to-night. She can appear against me in the morning, and in the meantime we can see that the money is made safe."

"Make no mistake about that," said the officer. "We'll see that the money is kept safe. You hand that bag over to me; I'll take charge of that."

"No," I answered; "it goes into your inspector's hands. You can send for him, if you like, or you can take me to him."

On a sudden I looked up, and there, among the faces at the door, I caught sight of Roncivalli and Brunow.

"Gentlemen," I said, "I take you to witness why I have done this thing. Here is the money which was to have been handed to you to-morrow. I have told the Brotherhood. I spared you once," I added, to Brunow; "you may go now and take your chance in earnest."

Roncivalli was a man of daring, and had more than once given proofs of courage; but he turned white at my words, and Brunow shrank back in the crowd with a face all ghastly gray, with his teeth gleaming behind his trembling lips. Through all the hurry and bustle of the scene the hotel manager was vainly urging the startled occupants of the house to return to their own chambers. Then, with a sudden leap of the heart, I heard a voice outside:

"Be good enough to make way for me."

"Come along!" cried the officer; "hand me that bag, and have done with it. I know my duty, and I've got force enough behind me."

"Wait a moment," I answered; "here is the owner of the money. Make way for Miss Rossano, and drive all those curious people away."

I saw the crowd divide, and Violet came in, looking about her wonderingly. I stood there manacled, holding out the stolen money in my extended hands. She gave one swift glance of astonishment, and closed the door, leaving us alone, except for the officer and the hotel manager. Hinge, conscious of his dishabille, had retreated at the moment of her entrance.

"My aunt has been robbed, John," she said, looking at me with wondering eyes— "robbed of forty thousand pounds!"

"And I," I answered, "am the thief, and here is the money."

"You the thief!" She fixed me with her eyes that have always seemed like stars of fate to me, and I saw a shadow of dreadful pain and wonder on her face. "You the thief!" she repeated.

"Yes," I answered; "I stole this money from Lady Rollinson five minutes ago." What with the certainty of triumph in my purpose, the surety of being immediately understood, and the joy of seeing her so unexpectedly again, I laughed outright. "I hand you back your own, dear. Take charge of it till you have heard my story. Sit down, and I will tell you everything."

"Is this your property, mum?" the officer asked, setting both hands on the bag as I set it on the table.

"I believe so," said Violet. "I gave the sum of forty thousand pounds into the charge of my aunt, Lady Rollinson, yesterday morning?"

"Then of course," said the policeman, "you give the person in charge?"

Violet looked at me with dancing eyes, and never in all my life have I known such pride and joy as that glance afforded me. There I stood before her, taken red-handed in the act, handcuffed, and openly confessing with my own lips my own deed; but any doubt of me was impossible to her true heart. I sounded at that moment the superb loyalty of her nature, and my pride in her seemed to lift me into heaven.

"In charge?" she asked, with a little tender, mirthful tremor in her voice. "No, I shall not give the gentleman in charge. Tell me what it means, John."

I told her first, briefly and rapidly, the story of poor old Ruffiano's betrayal, and how I had let Brunow go. Then I told her of Hinge's recognition of Sacovitch, of the meeting in Richmond Park, of what Hinge had heard at the cottage; and, finally, of what we had both heard together. I had called for Hinge at the very beginning of my narrative, and by the time I came to his share in it he was present, hastily muffled in an overcoat, and divided between a desire to stand immovably at attention and a contradictory attempt furtively to smooth his hair, which rayed out all round his head in disorderly spikes, and gave him a look of having been frightened out of his life.

"But why," she asked me, "did you take such an extraordinary action? Why not communicate with me?"

Then I had to tell her the story of that wretched Constance, which would have been an awkward thing to do under any circumstances, but was made more awkward still by the presence of the hotel manager and the constable. I went through it, however, without flinching, and I told her most of what has been set down in the latter part of these pages, though of course with less detail than I have given here. She scarcely interrupted me by a word, and when I had done she drew her purse from her pocket, and taking from it a sovereign, tendered the coin to the constable.

"You have done your duty, officer," she said. "But you understand that your services will not be required any longer."

THE END