rang the bell, and ordered the servant who answered it to procure
the _Daily Telegraph_. As soon as it arrived, he spread it open upon the
table, and Sogrange looked over his shoulder. These are the headings
which they saw in large black characters:

RENEWED RIOTS IN PARIS
THE GARE DU NORD IN FLAMES
TERRIBLE ACCIDENT TO THE CALAIS-DOUVRES
EXPRESS
MANY DEATHS

Peter's forefinger travelled down the page swiftly. It paused at the
following paragraph:--

"The 8.55 train from the Gare du Nord, carrying many passengers for
London, after being detained within a mile of Paris for over an hour
owing to the murder of the engine-driver, made an attempt last night to
proceed, with terrible results. Near Chantilly, whilst travelling at
over fifty miles an hour, the points were tampered with, and the express
dashed into a goods train laden with minerals. Very few particulars are
yet to hand, but the express was completely wrecked, and many lives have
been lost. Amongst the dead are the following:"

One by one Peter read out the names. Then he stopped short. A little
exclamation broke from Sogrange's lips. The thirteenth name upon that
list of dead was the name of Bernadine, Count von Hern.

"Bernadine!" Peter faltered. "Bernadine is dead!"

"Killed by the strikers!" Sogrange echoed. "It is a just thing, this."

The two men looked down at the paper and then up at each other. A
strange silence seemed to have found its way into the room. The shadow
of death lay between them. Peter touched his forehead and found it wet.

"It is a just thing, indeed," he repeated, "but justice and death are
alike terrible."

Late in the afternoon of the same day a motor car, splashed with mud,
drew up before the door of the house in Berkeley Square. Sogrange, who
was standing talking to Peter before the library window, suddenly broke
off in the middle of a sentence. He stepped back into the room and
gripped his friend's shoulder.

"It is the Baroness," he exclaimed quickly. "What does she want here?"

"The Baroness who?" Peter demanded.

"The Baroness von Ratten. You must have heard of her--she is the friend
of Bernadine."

The two men had been out to lunch at the Ritz with Violet, and had
walked across the Park home. Sogrange had been drawing on his gloves in
the act of starting out for a call at the Embassy.

"Does your wife know