ps. I might learn
something. If not--if he had only come to torture me uselessly to please
himself, I would soon find out, and could send him away.

I went into my little reception-room adjoining, and received him there.
He advanced, smiling, as one advances to a friend of whose welcome one
is sure.

"Well?" I asked, abruptly, when the door was shut and we were alone. He
held out his hand, but I put mine behind me, and drew back a step when
he had come too close.

"Well--I have news for you, that no one else could bring, so I thought
you would be glad to see--even me," he answered, smiling still.

"What news? But bad, of course--or you wouldn't bring it."

"You are very cruel. Of course, you've seen the evening papers? You know
that your English friend is in prison?"

"The same English friend whom _you_ would have liked to see arrested
early last evening on a ridiculous, baseless charge," I flung at him.
"You look surprised. But you are _not_ surprised, Count
Godensky--except, perhaps, that I should guess who had me spied upon at
the Elysee Palace Hotel. A disappointment, that affair, wasn't it? But
you haven't told me your news."

"It is this: That Mr. Ivor Dundas, of England, has been on the rack
to-day."

"What do you mean?"

"He has been in the hands of the Juge d'Instruction. It is much the
same, isn't it, if one has secrets to keep? Would you like to know, if
some magical bird could tell you, what questions were put to Mr. Dundas,
and what answers he made?"

Strange, that this very thought had been torturing me before Godensky
came! I had been thinking of the Juge d'Instruction, and his terrible
cross-examination which only a man of steel or iron can answer without
trembling. I had thought that questions had been asked and answers given
which might mean everything to me, if I could only have heard them.
Could it be that I was to hear, now? But I reminded myself that this was
impossible. No one could know except the Juge d'Instruction and Ivor
Dundas himself. "Only two men were present at that scene, and they will
never tell what went on," I said aloud.

"Three men were present," Godensky answered. "Besides the two of whom
you think, there was another: a lawyer who speaks English. It is
permitted nowadays that a foreigner, if he demands it, can be
accompanied by his legal adviser when he goes before the Juge
d'Instruction. Otherwise, his lack of knowledge of the language might
handicap him, and cause