worth while to bandy lies with you. We both know that those
pictures are from the brush of Robert Saxon. We both know that you
have bought them at the price of a pupil's work, and mean to sell them
at the price of the master's. I shall be in a position to prove the
swindle, and to hand you over to the courts."

St. John had at the first words stiffened with a sudden flaring of
British wrath under his gray brows. As he listened, the red flush of
anger faded to the coward's pallor.

"That is not all," went on Steele. "We both know that Mr. Saxon came
to Paris a short while ago. For him to learn the truth meant your
unmasking. He disappeared. We both know whose interests were served by
that disappearance. You will produce those canvases, and you will
produce Mr. Saxon within twenty-four hours, or you will face not only
exposure for art-piracy, but prosecution for what is more serious."

As he listened, St. John's face betrayed not only fear, but also a
slowly dawning wonder that dilated his vague pupils. Steele, keenly
reading the face, as he talked, knew that the surprise was genuine.

"As God is my witness," avowed the Englishman, earnestly, "if Mr.
Saxon is in Paris, or in Europe, I know nothing of it."

"That," observed Steele dryly, "will be a matter for you to prove."

"No, no!" The Englishman's voice was charged with genuine terror, and
the hand that he raised in pleading protest trembled. His carefully
counterfeited sprightliness of guise dropped away, and left him an old
man, much broken.

"I will tell you the whole story," he went on. "It's a miserable
enough tale without imputing such evil motives as you suggest. It's a
shameful confession, and I shall hold back nothing. The pictures you
saw are Saxon's pictures. Of course, I knew that. Of course, I bought
them at what his canvases would bring with the intention of selling
them at the greater price commanded by the greater painter. I knew
that the copyist had surpassed the master, but the world did not know.
I knew that Europe would never admit that possible. I knew that, if
once I palmed off this imitation as genuine, all the art-world would
laugh to scorn the man who announced the fraud. Mr. Saxon himself
could not hope to persuade the critics that he had done those
pictures, once they were accepted as Marston's. The art-world is led
like sheep. It believes there is one Marston, and that no other can
counterfeit him. And I knew that Marston himself cou