inquired, his voice a trifle husky and
weak. He looked at the girl against whose breast he leaned; her reply
alone could satisfy him.

"Josef, in going around to see if all things were locked tight, heard
you groaning, and, not knowing who it was, gave the alarm."

Carter struggled to his feet and, though a trifle dizzy yet from the
blow of his unseen foe, was able to stagger into the house. There
Trusia, with a woman's tender solicitude for those for whom she cares,
without the intervention of servants poured from a near-by decanter, and
forced Carter to drain, a goblet of wine. Under the stimulant his
strength returned.

"If Count Sobieska will lend me his arm I think I can retire now. How I
came in the yard--I see you are all curious though too polite to
inquire--I'll tell you in the morning when I feel more fit. At present I
have either a strange head or a beehive on my shoulders, I don't know
which."

When he reached his room and the Count entering also had closed the
door, Carter threw off much of the assumed languor, and told the
Counselor the whole of the tale. The Krovitzer shook his head dubiously.
"Josef found you at quarter past three this morning--yet you say Josef
was not one of the two men. Did you see the faces of both?"

"Only a glance. Both were bearded. The one who came from the back part
of the house was dark, black eyebrows, heavy black beard, pallid face,
or so it looked in the moonlight. The visitor was undoubtedly Russian."

"It may have been soot," said Sobieska musingly. "I remember now that,
while the rest of his face looked remarkably like a freshly scrubbed
one, there was a long dark smear along one of Josef's eyebrows as we
brought you into the house; but that is not enough to convict him of the
treason, however strong a suspicion it arouses. Well, things are looking
a trifle as if Vladimar not only knows where we are, but why we are
here. We'll have to strike quickly--as soon, in fact, as we set foot in
Krovitch again."

XVIII

I SAW--I KNOW

The next day they left Paris. Almost the first person Trusia espied at
the railroad station was General Vladimar, a stately young aide, and the
Casper Haupt of yesterday. Carter felt a thrill of recognition for the
latter; he was the passer-by of the night before who had received
Josef's signal, and, yes, it was the man who had met the Hereditary
Servitor in the moonlit shadow of the porch.

The General bustled forward with easy a