like the figure of death. It was
for him to strike the blow!

"Where is Bernadine now?" he asked.

"Get me a morning paper and I will tell you," Sogrange declared, rising.
"He was in the train which was stopped outside the Gare du Nord, on his
way to England. What became of the passengers I have not heard. I knew
what was likely to happen, and I left an hour before in a 100 H. P.
Charron."

Peter rang the bell and ordered the servant who answered it to procure
the Daily Telegraph. As soon as it arrived, he spread it open upon the
table and Sogrange looked over his shoulder. These are the headings
which they saw in large black characters:

RENEWED RIOTS IN PARIS

THE GARE DU NORD IN FLAMES

TERRIBLE ACCIDENT TO THE CALAIS-DOUVRES EXPRESS

MANY DEATHS

Peter's forefinger traveled down the page swiftly. It paused at the
following paragraph:

The 8.55 train from the Gare du Nord, carrying many passengers for
London, after being detained within a mile of Paris for over an hour
owing to the murder of the engine-driver, made an attempt last night
to proceed, with terrible results. Near Chantilly, whilst travelling
at over fifty miles an hour, the switches were tampered with and
the express dashed into a goods train laden with minerals. Very few
particulars are yet to hand, but the express was completely wrecked and
many lives have been lost.

Among the dead are the following:

One by one Peter read out the names. Then he stopped short. A little
exclamation broke from Sogrange's lips. The thirteenth name upon that
list of dead was that of Bernadine, Count von Hern.

"Bernadine!" Peter faltered. "Bernadine is dead!"

"Killed by the strikers!" Sogrange echoed! "It is a just thing, this."

The two men looked down at the paper and then up at one another. A
strange silence seemed to have found its way into the room. The shadow
of death lay between them. Peter touched his forehead and found it wet.

"It is a just thing, indeed," he repeated, "but justice and death are
alike terrible."...

Late in the afternoon of the same day, a motor car, splashed with mud,
drew up before the door of the house in Berkeley Square. Sogrange, who
was standing talking to Peter before the library window, suddenly broke
off in the middle of a sentence. He stepped back into the room and
gripped his friend's shoulder.

"It is the Baroness!" he exclaimed, quickl