to notice that, in passing, a tall, grey-faced
man, who wore a crush-hat, with a black coat over his evening clothes,
had suddenly recognised Ansell.

For a few steps he strode on with apparent unconcern, then he paused
and, having gazed for several moments after them still walking with
linked arms, unconscious of being remarked, he turned on his heel,
crossed the road, and strolled in the direction they were walking.

The watcher was the same grey-faced, keen-looking stranger who, earlier
that day, had sat in the country schoolroom at North Walsham listening
to the evidence given before the coroner concerning the mystery of the
Norwich Road.

His thin lips curled in a smile--a smile of bitter triumph--as he went
on with crafty footsteps behind the pair, watching them from across the
road.

CHAPTER V.

SECRETS OF STATE.

The right honourable the Earl of Bracondale, His Majesty's Principal
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, crossed his big, business-like
library at Bracondale Hall, near Torquay, and stood upon the Turkey
hearthrug ready to receive his visitor.

Beneath the red-shaded lamplight he presented a handsome picture, a
tall, well-built man of refined elegance, upon whom the cares of State
weighed rather heavily. His age was about forty-three, though, in his
well-cut evening clothes, he looked much younger; yet his face
undoubtedly denoted strength and cleverness, a sharpened intellect ever
on the alert to outwit foreign diplomacy, while the lines across his
brow betokened deep thought and frequent nights of sleeplessness.

To Great Britain's Foreign Minister is entrusted the care of her good
relations with both friends and enemies abroad, and surely no member of
the Cabinet occupies such a position of grave responsibilities, for a
false step upon his part, the revelation of a secret policy, of an
unfriendly attitude maintained injudiciously, may at any moment cause
the spark in the powder magazine of Europe.

To preserve peace, and yet be in a position to dictate to the Powers is
what a British Foreign Minister must do, a task the magnitude and
difficulty of which in these days can very easily be understood.

With his hands behind his back, his dark brow slightly contracted, his
eyes were fixed blankly upon the big, littered writing-table before him;
he was thinking deeply.

In profile his features were clean-cut, his forehead high and above the
average intelligence; his hair, though a