n suddenly a strange voice, with a ring
of malice in it, sounded in her ear. Someone was looking over her
shoulder, and reading aloud the words she had just begun!

Before Sonia Danidoff had time to utter a cry or make a movement, a
strong hand was over her lips, and another gripped her wrist, preventing
her from reaching the button of the electric bell that was fixed among
the taps. The Princess was almost fainting. She was expecting some
horrible shock, expecting to feel some horrible weapon that would take
her life, when the pressure on her lips and the grip upon her wrist
gradually relaxed; and at the same moment, the mysterious individual who
had thus taken her by surprise, moved round the bath and stood in front
of her.

He was a man of about forty years of age, and extremely well dressed. A
perfectly cut dinner jacket proved that the strange visitor was no
unclean dweller in the Paris slums: no apache such as the Princess had
read terrifying descriptions of in luridly illustrated newspapers. The
hands which had held her motionless, and which now restored her liberty
of movement to her, were white and well manicured and adorned with a few
plain rings. The man's face was a distinguished one, and he wore a very
fine black beard; slight baldness added to the height of a forehead
naturally large. But what struck the Princess most, although she had
little heart to observe the man very closely, was the abnormal size of
his head and the number of wrinkles that ran right across his temples,
following the line of the eyebrows.

In silence and with trembling lips Sonia Danidoff made an instinctive
effort again to reach the electric bell, but with a quick movement the
man caught her shoulder and prevented her from doing so. There was a
cryptic smile upon the stranger's lips, and with a furious blush Sonia
Danidoff dived back again into the milky water in the bath.

The man still stood in perfect silence, and at length the Princess
mastered her emotion and spoke to him.

"Who are you? What do you want? Go at once or I will call for help."

"Above all things, do not call out, or you are a dead woman!" said the
stranger harshly. Then he gave a little ironical shrug of his
shoulders. "As for ringing--that would not be easy: you would have to
leave the water to do so! And, besides, I object."

"If it is money, or rings you want," said the Princess between clenched
teeth, "take them! But go!"

The Princess had laid severa