s. She spoke with the abruptness and impetuosity of a
person whose feelings had got the better of her. If Marco was sensitive
about his father, she felt sure that his youth would make his face
reveal something if his tongue did not--if he understood Russian, which
was one of the things it would be useful to find out, because it was a
fact which would verify many other things.

Marco's face disappointed her. No change took place in it, and the
blood did not rise to the surface of his skin. He listened with an
uninterested air, blank and cold and polite. Let them say what they
chose.

The man twisted his pointed beard and shrugged his shoulders.

"We have a good little wine-cellar downstairs," he said. "You are
going down into it, and you will probably stay there for some time if
you do not make up your mind to answer my questions. You think that
nothing can happen to you in a house in a London street where policemen
walk up and down. But you are mistaken. If you yelled now, even if any
one chanced to hear you, they would only think you were a lad getting a
thrashing he deserved. You can yell as much as you like in the black
little wine-cellar, and no one will hear at all. We only took this
house for three months, and we shall leave it to-night without
mentioning the fact to any one. If we choose to leave you in the
wine-cellar, you will wait there until somebody begins to notice that
no one goes in and out, and chances to mention it to the
landlord--which few people would take the trouble to do. Did you come
here from Moscow?"

"I know nothing," said Marco.

"You might remain in the good little black cellar an unpleasantly long
time before you were found," the man went on, quite coolly. "Do you
remember the peasants who came to see your father two nights before you
left?"

"I know nothing," said Marco.

"By the time it was discovered that the house was empty and people came
in to make sure, you might be too weak to call out and attract their
attention. Did you go to Budapest from Vienna, and were you there for
three months?" asked the inquisitor.

"I know nothing," said Marco.

"You are too good for the little black cellar," put in the Lovely
Person. "I like you. Don't go into it!"

"I know nothing," Marco answered, but the eyes which were like
Loristan's gave her just such a look as Loristan would have given her,
and she felt it. It made her uncomfortable.

"I don't believe you were ever il