ut it, and that won't! be fair play. Turn your back."

He obeyed. "You see how I trust you!" he said. "There lie my country's
secrets."

"They're safe from me," I said pertly. (And so indeed they were--now.)
"They're too uninteresting to amuse me in the least."

As I spoke I found and abstracted the dummy treaty and slipped the real
one into its place. Then I laid the envelope with the note I had written
where he could not help finding it at first or second glance.

"Now you can close the safe," I said.

He shut the door, and I almost breathed aloud the words that burst from
my heart, "Thank Heaven!"

"I must leave you," I told him. And I was kind for a moment, capricious
no longer, because, though the treaty had been restored, I was going to
open the cage of Godensky's vengeance, and--I was afraid of him.

"I may come to you as soon as I'm free?" Raoul asked.

"Yes. Come and tell me what you think of the news, and--what you think
of me," I said. And while I spoke, smiling, I prayed within that he
might continue to think of me all things good--far better than I
deserved, yet not better than I would try to deserve in the future, if I
were permitted to spend that future with him.

The next thing I did was to send my letter to Count Godensky. This was a
flinging down of the glove, and I knew it well. But I was ready to fight
now.

Then, I had to keep my promise to Miss Forrest. But I had thought of a
way in which, I hoped, that promise--fulfilled as I meant to fulfil
it--might help rather than injure me. I had not lain awake all night for
nothing.

I went to the office of the Chief of Police, who is a gentleman and a
patron of the theatre--when he can spare time from his work. I had met
him, and had reason to know that he admired my acting.

His first words were of congratulation upon my success in the new play;
and he was as cordial, as complimentary, as if he had never heard of
that scene at the Elysee Palace Hotel, about which of course he knew
everything--so far as his subordinate could report.

"Are you surprised to see me, Monsieur?" I asked.

"A great delight is always more or less of a surprise in this work-a-day
world," he gallantly replied.

"But you can guess what has brought me?"

"Would that I could think it was only to give me a box at the theatre
this evening."

"It is partly that," I laughed. "Partly for the pleasure of seeing you,
of course. And partly--you know already, since you know