hotel
to steamer, where Franz von Blenheim, in the guise of Van Blarcom, had
given her a fright. As she exhibited her passport at the gang-plank, he
had read her name across her shoulder; then he had claimed acquaintance
with her, a claim that she knew was false.

"And he wasn't impertinent. That was the worst of it," she faltered. "He
did it--well--accusingly. I had known all along that any one who knew of
Jean's marriage would recognize my name. And Jean was suspected, and
the French are strict; if they were warned, they would not let me enter
France; they would think I had come spying. I was afraid. Then, after
dinner, I went on deck and found you standing by the railing reading
that paper with its staring headlines about Jean."

"Of course!" I exclaimed. At last I fathomed that puzzling episode.
"You thought the paper might speak of the duke's marriage, that it might
mention your sister's name. In that case, if it stayed on board, it
might be seen by the captain or by an officer, and they would guess who
you were and warn the authorities when we got to shore."

"Yes. That was why I borrowed it. And I was right, I discovered; just at
the end the account said that Jean had married an American, a Miss Enid
Falconer, four years ago. Then I asked you to throw it overboard, Mr.
Bayne; and you were wonderful. You must have thought I was mad, but you
didn't flutter an eyelid or even smile. I have never forgotten--and I've
never forgiven myself either. When I think of how the steward saw
you and told the captain, and of how they searched your baggage that
dreadful day--"

"It didn't matter a brass farden!" I hastened to assure her, for she had
paused and was gazing at me, large-eyed and pale. "Don't think of that
any more. Suppose we skip to Paris! Blenheim followed you there, hoping
he was on the scent of the vanished papers; and when you arrived at the
rue St.-Dominique, there was still no news of the duke."

"No news," she mourned; "not a word. And Enid was ill and hopeless;
from the very first she had felt sure that Jean was dead. But I wouldn't
admit it. I said we must try to find him. All the way over in the
steamer I had been making a sort of plan.

"You see, one of the papers had described how the French had found
Jean's airship lying in the forest of La Fay, as if he had abandoned it
from choice. That was considered proof of his treason; but of course I
knew that it wasn't. I remembered that the Marquis of Pr