s in
his way can be safe. Not even the life of Mademoiselle Selpdorf!'

The Chancellor was moved for once.

'You are out of your senses!' he said sternly.

'It is true!'

Both men looked around. Valerie had entered.

'Father, you must hear me before you--before you----'

She glanced at Rallywood and stopped.

'Go, Valerie; you have nothing to do with these things.'

Selpdorf met her as she came towards him.

'You must hear me to-night, father. You are mistaken; I have had a great
deal to do with them. I know all that Captain Rallywood has said to
you--yes, I had a right to know. For it was I who brought Major
Counsellor to the Duke's apartments at the Castle, because I knew there
was a plot against his Highness. But I did not know it was a German plot
in which Baron von Elmur was using Count Sagan. Oh, you must be on your
guard against them!'

'Who has been frightening you with all this nonsense?' asked Selpdorf
with cold suspicion.

'You don't understand me! Father, I know how Captain Colendorp died. I
saw it--the struggle and his fall over the cliff. Then I guessed his
Highness was in danger, and I went to warn him. Captain Rallywood, tell
my father of Count Sagan's visit to the Duke's rooms in the middle of
the night with Baron von Elmur. I--we, Isolde and I--heard the shots.
You do not know it, but there is a plot. Your life is not safe! Captain
Rallywood is right; no life that stands in Count Sagan's way is safe!
And you on whom the State depends--you who alone can uphold her
liberty--you are the first they will try to destroy! He hates you, else
why should he try to kill me?'

She was clinging to his arm.

'To kill you? If I thought that was true--if I could believe he meant to
injure you----'

It added very much to Selpdorf's difficulties that he had a conscience
and a heart. Perhaps Valerie had kept both awake. He, who acted a part
to all the world, had been sedulous to maintain a high _role_ before his
daughter. Perhaps he valued her absolute faith in him even more than her
love, which is a commoner attitude of mind than we realise.

He felt himself at fault. Although he had heard no details to enable him
to judge for himself, yet he knew he could rely upon Valerie's statement
that an attempt had been made upon her life. Count Simon's
unscrupulousness was an old tale, but this crime was not only
cold-blooded but also extraordinarily stupid, since the faintest
suspicion of foul play would fin