e curses they fled through the window.

"Then you came, and I had just the strength left to whisper to you to
open the safe when I fainted away.

"I have no recollection of what occurred after. Many hours must have
elapsed before I regained consciousness, and then I came to myself in
an underground room of what I knew after to be a lonely tower on the
hills near Bath."

"What, not Cruft's Folly?" I suggested.

"Yes," she replied thoughtfully; "I believe that was the name I
afterwards learned was given to the place.

"I was waited on by a German woman, the wife of one of the Duke's
followers, a big dark man with a black beard.

"My dress, my bed, and general surroundings were those of a poor
country woman.

"But this black-bearded German and his wife were the means of saving me.

"There had been an accident, a man had fallen off the tower and been
killed.

"The big dark man and his wife were terribly frightened, and in this
state could not withstand the temptation of the big bribe I promised
them if they would obtain my release.

"They brought a country cart to the tower, full of straw, as soon as it
was dusk on the day of the accident, and in this I was driven to
Devizes. From there I telegraphed to my bankers and they sent a
special messenger to me with an abundance of money and a new
cheque-book; from that time forth I was my own mistress again.

"The wound in my neck, which was only skin deep, had been carefully
bandaged by the German woman; under the hands of a skilled doctor and
nurse, it soon healed.

"I have very little doubt but that the Duke intended to keep me a
prisoner in the tower until I disclosed the whereabouts of the diamonds.

"The big German who had arranged my escape--and to whom I gave five
hundred pounds--told me that a grave had already been dug to receive my
body in the old graveyard behind the house in Monmouth Street.

"Had the Duke discovered the diamonds, I should have been murdered to
save further trouble from me; he knew, of course, I was already dead to
the world. As it was, they only buried my bloodstained bed-linen in
the grave when they carried me off from the house, after you had left
the Duke stunned."

I could have told the old Queen that the big German did not long enjoy
her five hundred pounds, but that he himself filled the grave intended
for her, and which, probably, he had helped to dig. I did not tell her
this, she had had trouble enough; but I had little