r protege?" I asked, twisting my
handkerchief, as I should have liked to twist Godensky's neck, till he
had no more breath or wickedness left in him.

"Mr. Dundas tried his best to convince the Juge d'Instruction, a most
clever and experienced man, that if he had, as an old friend, brought
you a present of diamonds, it was something entirely different, and
therefore far removed from this case.

"'Are you not Mademoiselle de Renzie's lover?' was the next enquiry. 'I
admire her, as do thousands of others, who also respect her as I do,'
your friend returned very prettily. At last, dearest lady, you begin to
see what there is in this string of questions and answers to bring me
straight to you?"

"No, Count Godensky, I do not," I answered steadily. But a sudden
illuminating ray did show me, even as I spoke, what _might_ be in his
scheming mind.

"Then I must be clear, and, above all, frank. Du Laurier loves you. You
love him. You mean, I think, to marry him. But deeply in love as he is,
he is a very proud fellow. He will have all or nothing, if I judge him
well; and he would not take for his wife a woman who accepts diamonds
from another man, saying as she takes them that he is her lover."

"He wouldn't believe it of me!" I cried.

"There is a way of convincing him. Oh, _I_ shall not tell him! But he
shall see in writing all that passed between the Juge d'Instruction and
Mr. Dundas, unless--"

"Unless?--but I know what you mean to threaten. You repeat yourself."

"Not quite, for I have new arguments, and stronger ones. I want you,
Maxine. I mean to have you--or I will crush you, and now you know I can.
Choose."

I sprang up, and looked at him. Perhaps there was murder in my eyes, as
for a moment there was in my heart, for he exclaimed:

"Tigeress! You would kill me if you could. But that doesn't make me love
you less. Would du Laurier have you if he knew what you are--as he will
know soon unless you let me save you? Yet I--I would love you if you
were a murderess as well as a--spy."

"It is you who are a spy!" I faltered, now all but broken.

"If I am, I haven't spied in vain. Not only can I ruin you with du
Laurier, and before the world, but I can ruin him utterly and in all
ways."

"No--no," I gasped. "You cannot. You're boasting. You can do nothing."

"Nothing to-night, perhaps. I'm not speaking of to-night. I am giving
you time. But to-morrow--or the day after. It's much the same to me. At
first, when I