d
have seen that I gave you a dark green leather letter-case--quite
different from this, though of about the same length--rather less thick,
and--"

Frantically she began ransacking the crevice between the seat and back
of the sofa, but nothing was there. We might have known there could be
nothing or the Commissary of Police would have been before us. With a
cry she cut me short at last throwing up her hands in despair. She was
deathly pale again, and all the light had gone out of her eyes leaving
them dull as if she had been sick with some long illness.

"What will become of me?" she stammered. "The treaty lost! My God--what
shall I do? Ivor, you are killing me. Do you know--you are killing me?"

The word "treaty" was new to me in this connection, for the Foreign
Secretary had not thought it necessary that his messenger should be
wholly in his secrets--and Maxine's. Yet hearing the word brought no
great surprise. I knew that I had been cat's-paw in some game of high
stakes. But it was of Maxine I thought now, and the importance of the
loss to her, not the national disaster which it might well be also.

"Wait," I said, "don't despair yet. There's some mistake. Perhaps we
shall be able to see light when we've thrashed this out and talked it
over. I know I had a green letter-case. It never left my pocket. I
thought of it and guarded it every moment. Could those diamonds have
been inside it? Could the Foreign Secretary had given me the necklace,
_instead_ of what you expected?"

"No, no," she answered with desperate impatience. "He knew that the only
thing which could save me was the document I'd sent him. I wired that I
must have it back again immediately, for my own sake--for his--for the
sake of England. Ivor! Think again. Do you want me to go mad?"

"I will think," I said, trying to speak reassuringly. "Give me a
moment--a quiet moment--"

"A quiet moment," she repeated, bitterly, "when for me each second is an
hour! It's late, and this is the night of my new play. Soon, I must be
at the theatre, for the make-up and dressing of this part for the first
act are a heavy business. I don't want all Paris to know that Maxine de
Renzie has been ruined by her enemies. Let us keep the secret while we
can, for others' sakes, and so gain time for our own, if all is not
lost--if you believe still that there's any hope. Oh, save me,
Ivor--somehow. My whole life is in this."

"Let your understudy take your part to-night, wh