ris, you say? Are you sure it is to Paris?"

"How could I be sure. I am telling you what was told to me. He is to be
back in a few days' time. It is not to be expected that he would share
his plans with me."

"Certainly not--he would tell you nothing. Do you know that he is a
Pole, Alban?"

"A Pole? No! Indeed he gives it out that he was born in Germany and is
now a naturalized British subject."

"He would do so, but he is a Pole--and because he is a Pole he tells
you that he has gone to Paris when the truth is that he is at Berlin all
the time."

"But why should he wish to deceive me, Paul--what am I to him?"

"You are one necessary to his salvation--perhaps it is by you alone that
he will live. I could see when I first spoke to you how much you were
astonished that I knew anything about it, but remember, every Pole in
London knows all about his fellow-countrymen, and so it is very natural
that I know something of Richard Gessner. You who live in his house can
tell me more. See what a gossip I am where my own people are concerned.
You have been living in this man's house and you can tell me all about
it--his tastes, his books, his friends. There would be many friends
coming, of course?"

"Not very many, Paul, and those chiefly city men. They eat a great deal
and talk about money. It's all money up there--the rich, the rich, the
rich--I wonder how long I shall be able to stand it."

"Oh, money's a thing most people get used to very quickly. They can
stand a lot of it, my boy. But are there not foreigners at your
house--men of my own country?"

"I have never seen any--once, I think, Mr. Gessner was talking to a
stranger in the garden and he looked like a foreigner. You don't think I
would spy upon him Paul?"

"That would be the work of a very ungrateful fellow. None the less, if
there are foreigners at Hampstead--I should wish to know of it."

"You--and why?"

"That I may save your kind friend from certain perils which I think are
about to menace him. Yes, yes, he has been generous to you and I
wish to reward him. He must not know--he must never hear my name in
the matter, but should there be strangers at Hampstead let me know
immediately--write to me if you cannot come here. Do not delay or you
may rue it to the end of your days. Write to me, Alban, and I shall know
how to help your friend."

He had spoken under a spell of strong excitement, but his message
delivered, he fell again to his old quiet mann