"the question which I shall ask
will be one which it will be very much to your advantage to answer.
I will put it as plainly as possible. You are going, as you admit
yourself, to pay your card debts to-night or to-morrow morning, and you
are certainly not going to pay them out of your income. Where is the
money coming from?"

Albert of Trent seemed suddenly to remember that after all he was of
royal descent. He drew himself up and bore himself, for a moment, as a
Prince should.

"Baron de Grost," he said, "you pass the limits of friendship when you
ask such a question. I take the liberty of wishing you good-night."

He moved towards the door. The Baron, however, was in the way--a strong,
motionless figure, and his tone, when he spoke again, was convincing.

"Prince," he declared, "I speak in your own interests. You have not
chosen to answer my question. Let me answer it for you. The money to
pay your debts, and I know not how much besides, was to come from the
Government of a country with whom none of your name or nationality
should willingly have dealings."

The Prince started violently. The shock caused him to forget his
new-found dignity.

"How, in the devil's name, do you know that?" he demanded.

"I know more," the Baron continued. "I know the consideration which you
were to give for this money."

Then the Prince began plainly to show the terror which had crept into
his heart--the terror and the shame. He looked at his host like a man
dazed with hearing strange things.

"It comes to nothing," he said, in a hard, unnatural tone. "It is a
foolish bargain, indeed. Between me and the throne are four lives.
My promise is not worth the paper it is written upon. I shall never
succeed."

"That, Prince, is probably where you are misinformed," the Baron
replied. "You are just now in disgrace with your family, and you hear
from them only what the newspapers choose to tell."

"Has anything been kept back from me?" the Prince asked.

"Tell me this first," De Grost insisted. "Am I not right in assuming
that you have signed a solemn undertaking that, in the event of your
succeeding to the throne of your country, you will use the whole of your
influence towards concluding a treaty with a certain Power, one of the
provisions of which is that that Power shall have free access to any one
of your ports in the event of war with England?"

There was a moment's silence. The Prince clutched the back of the chair
against w