hy I should be upon the brink of
this mysterious abyss!" she cried. "You don't explain the situation
sufficiently fully."

"Because at present I cannot do so. No one regrets it more than
myself. There is a grim mystery--a very great mystery--and I intend,
with your assistance, to escape my enemy and clear it up."

"Who is your enemy?"

"Oswald De Gex! He is my enemy as well as yours," I said very
seriously. "If you were in the possession of such facts as those I
have gathered during the past week or so, you would be startled
and--well, perhaps terrified. But I only again beg of you to have a
care of yourself. You have promised silence, and I, on my part, will
carry on my search for the truth."

"The truth of what?"

"The truth concerning Gabrielle Engledue."

The pretty little woman again looked at me very straight in the face
for some moments without speaking. Then, with a strange hardness about
her mouth, she said:

"Mr. Garfield, take it from me, you will never discover what you are
in search of. The truth is too well hidden."

"What? Then you know something--eh?" I cried quickly.

"Yes. It is true!" she answered in a low, hard voice. "I do know
something--something of a certain secret that can never pass my lips!"

CHAPTER THE TENTH

MONSIEUR SUZOR AGAIN

Mrs. Cullerton's words held me breathless.

At first I believed that I might wring the truth from her lips, but I
quickly saw that she intended to preserve her secret at all costs.
Whether she actually believed what I had told her concerning her own
peril was doubtful. In any case, she seemed in some strange manner
held powerless and fascinated by the rich man who had saved her
speculating husband from ruin.

I remained there for still another quarter of an hour until her maid
announced a visitor, when I was compelled to rise and take my leave.

For a few days longer I remained in Florence; then I left for London.
On entering the Calais express at the Gare du Nord in Paris on my way
home, I was agreeably surprised to find among my fellow travellers to
England the affable French banker whom I had met on that memorable
journey from York to London. He recognized me at once, and I inquired
why he was not, as usual, crossing by air to Croydon.

"Ah!" he laughed. "The last time I crossed three weeks ago we went
into a thick fog over the Channel, and it was not very comfortable. So
I prefer the rail just now."

On this occasion we exchanged