deal of brandy. I
need it."

The Princess felt her own hand shake. She brought him a tumbler and sat
down by his side.

"You had to kill him?" she asked, in a whisper. "Is it that?"

Forrest set down his glass--empty.

"No!" he answered. "We were going to, when a mad woman who lives there
got into the place and found us out. We had them safe, the two of them,
when the worst thing happened which could have befallen us. Andrew de
la Borne broke in upon us."

The Princess listened with set face.

"Go on," she said. "What happened?"

"The game was up so far as we were concerned," he answered. "Cecil
crumpled up before his brother, and gave the whole show away. There was
nothing left for me to do but to wait and hear what they had to say,
before I decided whether or no to make my graceful exit from the stage."

"Go on," she commanded. "What happened exactly?"

"We were kept there," he continued, "until this morning, waiting until
Engleton was well enough to make up his mind what to do. The end is
simple enough. Considering that but for that girl's intervention
Engleton would have been in the sea by now, and he knows it, I suppose
it might have been worse. I have signed a paper undertaking to leave
England within forty-eight hours, and never to show myself in this
country again. Further, I am not to play cards at any time with any
Englishman."

"Is that all?" the Princess asked.

"Yes!" Forrest answered. "I suppose you would say that they have let me
off lightly. I wish I could feel so. If ever a man was sick of those
dirty disreputable foreign places, where one holds on to life and
respectability only with the tips of one's fingernails, I am. I think I
shall chuck it, Ena. I am tired of those foreign crowds, suspicious,
semi-disreputable. There's something wrong with every one of them. Even
the few decent ones you know very well speak to you because you are in
a foreign country, and would cut you in Pall Mall."

"It isn't so bad as that," the Princess said calmly. "There are some of
the places worth living in. You must live a quieter life, spend less,
and find distractions. You used to be so fond of shooting and golf."

He laughed hardly.

"How am I to live," he demanded, "away from the card-tables? What do
you suppose my income is? A blank! It is worse than a blank, for I owe
bills which I shall never pay. How am I going to live from day to day
unless I go on the same infernal treadmill. I am an adventurer