ependent efforts with such help as I can secure. This
girl and boy are fellow country-people, and I haven't any intention of
leaving them in the clutches of any brutal gang of Frenchmen into whose
hands they may have got. I shall go on doing what I can, Spencer."

The journalist shrugged his shoulders.

"I can't help sympathizing with you, Duncombe," he said, "but keep
reasonable. You know your Paris well enough to understand that you
haven't a thousand to one chance. Besides, Frenchmen are not brutal. If
the boy got into a scrape, it was probably his own fault."

"And the girl? What of her? Am I to leave her to the tender mercies of
whatever particular crew of blackguards may have got her into their
power?"

"You are needlessly melodramatic," Spencer answered. "I will admit, of
course, that her position may be an unfortunate one, but the personage
whom I have the honor to call my friend does not often protect
blackguards. Be reasonable, Duncombe! These young people are not
relatives of yours, are they?"

"No!"

"Nor very old friends? The young lady, for instance?"

Duncombe looked up, and his face was set in grim and dogged lines. He
felt like a man who was nailing his colors to the mast.

"The young lady," he said, "is, I pray Heaven, my future wife!"

Spencer was honestly amazed, and a little shocked.

"Forgive me, Duncombe," he said. "I had no idea--though perhaps I ought
to have guessed."

They went on with their luncheon in silence for some time, except for a
few general remarks. But after the coffee had been brought and the
cigarettes were alight, Spencer leaned once more across the table.

"Tell me, Duncombe, what you mean to do."

"I shall go to the Cafe Montmartre myself to-night. At such a place
there must be hangers-on and parasites who see something of the game. I
shall try to come into touch with them. I am rich enough to outbid the
others who exact their silence."

"You must be rich enough to buy their lives then," Spencer answered
gravely, "for if you do succeed in tempting any one to betray the inner
happenings of that place on which the seal of silence has been put, you
will hear of them in the Morgue before a fortnight has passed."

"They must take their risk," Duncombe said coldly. "I am going to stuff
my pockets with money to-night, and I shall bid high. I shall leave word
at the hotel where I am going. If anything happens to me there--well, I
don't think the Cafe Montmartre will f