statement you made at the hotel, concerning Mr.
Dundas?"

"That is one of the many things I have come here on purpose to tell
you," I answered him; "for I am going to give you my whole confidence. I
throw myself upon your mercy."

"You do me a great honour. Will you speak without my prompting?"

"Yes. I would prefer it. In England, a year ago, I had a little
flirtation with Mr. Dundas--no more, though we liked and admired each
other. We exchanged a few silly letters, and I forgot all about them
until I fell in love with Raoul and promised to marry him--only a short
time ago. Then I couldn't bear to think that I had written these foolish
letters, and that, perhaps, Mr. Dundas might have kept them. I wrote and
asked if he had. He answered that he had every one, and valued them
immensely, but if I wished, he would either burn all, or bring them to
me, whichever I chose. I chose to have him bring them, and I told him
that I'd meet him at the Elysee Palace Hotel on a certain evening, to
receive the letters from him."

"He came, as I said, under another name. Why was that, Mademoiselle,
since there was nothing for him to be ashamed of?"

"He also is in love, and just engaged to be married to an American girl
who lives with relations in London, in a very high position. He didn't
want the girl to know he was coming to Paris, because, it seems, there
had been a little talk about him and me, which she had heard. And she
didn't like it."

"I see. This gentleman started for Paris, I have learned, the first
thing in the morning, the day after a ball at a house where he met the
British Secretary for Foreign Affairs."

"Perhaps. For I have enquired and found out that the girl--a Miss
Forrest, is distantly connected with the British Foreign Secretary. She
lives with her aunt, Lady Mountstuart, whose sister is married to that
gentleman. And the Foreign Secretary is a cousin of Lord Mountstuart."

"Ah, Miss Forrest!"

"You know of her already?"

"I have heard her name."

(I guessed how: for she could not have seen Ivor Dundas in prison except
through the Chief of Police; but I said nothing of that.)

"You say you know how we met at the hotel, Mr. Dundas and I," I went on.
"But I'll explain to you now the inner meaning of it all, which even you
can't have found out. Mr. Dundas was to have brought me my letters--half
a dozen. He gave me a leather case, which he took from an inner breast
pocket, saying the letters were in it