ing I have in the world!"

Madame Wachner suddenly laid her hand on Sylvia's arm, and tried to force
her down on to her knees.

"What do you take us for?" she cried, furiously. "We want nothing from
you--nothing at all!"

She looked across at her husband, and there burst from her lips a torrent
of words, uttered in the uncouth tongue which the Wachners used for
secrecy.

Sylvia tried desperately to understand, but she could make nothing of
the strange, rapid-spoken syllables--until there fell on her ear, twice
repeated, the name _Wolsky_....

Madame Wachner stepped suddenly back, and as she did so L'Ami Fritz moved
a step forward.

Sylvia looked at him, an agonised appeal in her eyes. He was smiling
hideously, a nervous grin zig-zagging across his large, thin-lipped
mouth.

"You should have taken the coffee," he muttered in English. "It would
have saved us all so much trouble!"

He put out his left hand, and the long, strong fingers closed,
tentacle-wise, on her slender shoulder.

His right hand he kept still hidden behind his back--

CHAPTER XXV

The great open-air restaurant in the Champs Elysees was full of
foreigners, and Paul de Virieu and Bill Chester were sitting opposite to
one another on the broad terrace dotted with little tables embowered in
flowering shrubs.

They were both smoking,--the Englishman a cigar, the Frenchman a
cigarette. It was now half-past seven, and instead of taking the first
express to Switzerland they had decided to have dinner comfortably in
Paris and to go on by a later train.

Neither man felt that he had very much to say to the other, and Chester
started a little in his seat when Paul de Virieu suddenly took his
cigarette out of his mouth, put it down on the table, and leant forward.
He looked at the man sitting opposite to him straight in the eyes.

"I do not feel at all happy at our having left Mrs. Bailey alone at
Lacville," he said, deliberately.

Chester stared back at him, telling himself angrily as he did so that he
did not in the least know what the Frenchman was driving at!

What did Paul de Virieu mean by saying this stupid, obvious thing, and
why should he drag in the question of his being happy or unhappy?

"You know that I did my best to persuade her to leave the place," said
Chester shortly. Then, very deliberately he added, "I am afraid, Count,
that you've got quite a wrong notion in your mind concerning myself and
Mrs. Bailey. It is true I