he shadows of the hearth. There was something there, a small
object--round, wrapped in paper. She reached forward quickly, picked it
up and examined it curiously then took off its covering, disclosing an
Austrian coin--a _kroner_--nothing more. It was most mysterious. The
thing could obviously have not come from the sky. Who?

She examined the paper closely. It seemed like a leaf torn from a note
book. There was writing on it, and moving to the window she made out the
script without difficulty. It was written in evident haste with a blunt
pencil.

I have found a way to escape in a machine from Herr Wendt, if you
will come at once. Only one man watches the cabin by the door.
There is another in the orchard. Go quietly out by the window and
follow the hedge to the garden wall. I will be at the gate beyond
the arbor. Destroy this note.

HUGH RENWICK.

Marishka read the note twice to be sure that there was no mistake. She
quickly peered through the window by the door. Yes, the man was there,
smoking his pipe in the sunshine, his back against a tree, dozing.
Anything were better than this interminable suspense--this horrible
oppression of acknowledged failure. To be under further obligations to
Herr Renwick was an added bitterness to her wounded pride, but hope had
already beggared her and she could not choose. She got into coat and
hat, and after another careful scrutiny of her somnolent guardian,
quietly opened the shutters of the side window, stepped out into the
shadow of the hedge, and made her way toward the distant garden wall.

CHAPTER VII

THE GREEN LIMOUSINE

Herr Windt started up from the bench on which he had thrown himself. It
was a pity there was no earlier train for Vienna. He stretched himself
and yawned, for he confessed himself a trifle disappointed that there
was to be, after all, no test of wits between himself and the agent of
the Wilhelmstrasse who had followed the Countess Strahni to the Nordwest
station in Vienna. His men had done the fellow in the motor cap no great
damage, for his own instructions had been limited but definite: to save
Marishka Strahni in all secrecy from coming to harm, but to prevent her
at all hazards from reaching Konopisht before the Archduke and Duchess
left for Sarajevo. This simple task had been accomplished with little
difficulty. The agent of the Wilhelmstrasse, undoubtedly a person of
small caliber, had given up his efforts, o