ou a dozen times since those Algerian days, and never have you
failed to afford me some amusement or excitement. You are the most
interesting and entertaining young man I know. Try one of these cigars."

Precisely at the time Courtlandt stepped into the automobile outside the
war-office, a scene, peculiar in character, but inconspicuous in that it
did not attract attention, was enacted in the Gare de l'Est. Two
sober-visaged men stood respectfully aside to permit a tall young man in a
Bavarian hat to enter a compartment of the second-class. What could be
seen of the young man's face was full of smothered wrath and
disappointment. How he hated himself, for his weakness, for his cowardice!
He was not all bad. Knowing that he was being watched and followed, he
could not go to Versailles and compromise her, uselessly. And devil take
the sleek demon of a woman who had prompted him to commit so base an act!

"You will at least," he said, "deliver that message which I have intrusted
to your care."

"It shall reach Versailles to-night, your Highness."

The young man reread the telegram which one of the two men had given him a
moment since. It was a command which even he, wilful and disobedient as he
was, dared not ignore. He ripped it into shreds and flung them out of the
window. He did not apologize to the man into whose face the pieces flew.
That gentleman reddened perceptibly, but he held his tongue. The blare of
a horn announced the time of departure. The train moved. The two men on
the platform saluted, but the young man ignored the salutation. Not until
the rear car disappeared in the hazy distance did the watchers stir. Then
they left the station and got into the tonneau of a touring-car, which
shot away and did not stop until it drew up before that imposing embassy
upon which the French will always look with more or less suspicion.

CHAPTER VI

THE BIRD BEHIND BARS

The most beautiful blue Irish eyes in the world gazed out at the dawn
which turned night-blue into day-blue and paled the stars. Rosal lay the
undulating horizon, presently to burst into living flame, transmuting the
dull steel bars of the window into fairy gold, that trick of alchemy so
futilely sought by man. There was a window at the north and another at the
south, likewise barred; but the Irish eyes never sought these two. It was
from the east window only that they could see the long white road that led
to Paris.

The nightingale was trul