than anything else."

"A diminishing capital, too," he returned with a laugh; while his mind
was suddenly alert to an idea which had flown into his vision, though
its full significance did not possess him yet.

"The Moravian ambassador is not very busy," he added with an undertone
of meaning.

"Perhaps; but I am," she answered with like meaning, and looked him in
the eyes, steadily, serenely, determinedly. All at once there had
opened out before her a great possibility. Both from the Count
Landrassy and from the Moravian ambassador she had had hints of some
deep, international scheme of which Ian Stafford was the
engineer-in-chief, though she did not know definitely what it was. Both
ambassadors had paid their court to her, each in a different way, and
M. Mennaval would have been as pertinacious as he was vain and somewhat
weak (albeit secretive, too, with the feminine instinct so strong in
him) if she had not checked him at all points. From what Count
Landrassy had said, it would appear that Ian Stafford's future hung in
the balance--dependent upon the success of his great diplomatic scheme.

Could she help Ian? Could she help him? Had the time come when she
could pay her debt, the price of ransom from the captivity in which he
held her true and secret character? It had been vaguely in her mind
before; but now, standing beside Jigger's bed, with the lad's feverish
hand in hers, there spread out before her a vision of a lien lifted, of
an ugly debt redeemed, of freedom from this man's scorn. If she could
do some great service for him, would not that wipe out the unsettled
claim? If she could help to give him success, would not that, in the
end, be more to him than herself? For she would soon fade, the dust
would soon gather over her perished youth and beauty; but his success
would live on, ever freshening in his sight, rising through long years
to a great height, and remaining fixed and exalted. With a great belief
she believed in him and what he could do. He was a Sisyphus who could
and would roll the-huge stone to the top of the hill--and ever with
easier power.

The old touch of romance and imagination which had been the governing
forces of her grandfather's life, the passion of an idea, however
essentially false and meretricious and perilous to all that was worth
while keeping in life, set her pulses beating now. As a child her
pulses used to beat so when she had planned with her good-for-nothing
brother some