care enough for him. Which merely meant that if he were ordinarily
polite and considerate and companionable I would ultimately become his
wife.

"That was the arrangement. And it caused much trouble. Because I was
a--" she smiled at Barres, "--a success from the first moment. And
d'Eblis immediately began to be abominably jealous and unreasonable.
Again and again he broke his promise and tried to interfere with my
career. He annoyed me constantly by coming to my hotel at inopportune
moments; he made silly scenes if I ventured to have any friends or if
I spoke twice to the same man; he distrusted me--he and Ferez Bey, who
had taken service with him. Together they humiliated me, made my life
miserable by their distrust.

"I warned d'Eblis that his absurd jealousy and unkindness would not
advance him in my interest. And for a while he seemed to become
more reasonable. In fact, he apparently became sane again, and I had
even consented to our betrothal, when, by accident, I discovered
that he and Ferez were having me followed everywhere I went. And
that very night was to have been a gay one--a party in honour of our
betrothal--the night I discovered what he and Ferez had been doing
to me.

"I was so hurt, so incensed, that--" She cast an involuntary glance at
Barres; he made a slight movement of negation, and she concluded her
sentence calmly: "--I quarrelled with d'Eblis.... There was a very
dreadful scene. And it transpired that he had sold a preponderating
interest in _Le Mot d'Ordre_ to Ferez Bey, who was operating the paper
in German interests through orders directly from Berlin. And d'Eblis
thought I knew this and that I meant to threaten him, perhaps
blackmail him, to shield some mythical lover with whom, he declared, I
had become involved, and who was betraying him to the British
Ambassador."

She drew a deep, long breath:

"Is it necessary for me to say that there was not a particle of truth
in his hysterical accusations?--that I was utterly astounded? But my
amazement became anger and then sheer terror when I learned from his
own lips that he had cunningly involved me in his transactions with
Ferez and with Berlin. So cunningly, so cleverly, so seriously had he
managed to compromise me as a German agent that he had a mass of
evidence against me sufficient to have had me court-martialled and
shot had it been in time of war.

"To me the situation seemed hopeless. I never would be believed by the
French Gov