to the prisoner's cell, the stupefying effect of
this announcement may readily be conceived.

"What!" ejaculated the Dariuses.

"It is not true! She is mad! Take her avay, please!" shouted the Baron,
now desperate in his resolution to say or do anything, so long as he got
rid of his formidable relative.

The Countess staggered back.

"Is he demented?" she inquired.

"Say, ma'am," put in Ri, "are you the mother of Miss Constance
Herringay?"

"Of----? I am Lady Grillyer!"

"See here, my good lady, that's going a little too far," said the
millionaire not unkindly. "This friend of yours here first calls himself
Lord Tulliwuddle, and then the Baron von something or other. Well, now,
that's two of the aristocracy in this under-sized apartment already.
There's hardly room for a third--see? Can't you be plain Mrs. Smith for
a change?"

The Countess tottered.

"Fellow!" she said in a faint voice, "I--I do not understand you."

"Thought that would fetch her down," commented Ri.

"Lead her back to ze train and make her go to London!" pleaded the Baron
earnestly.

"You stick to it, you don't know her?" asked Mr. Maddison shrewdly.

"No, no, I do not!"

"Is her name Lady Grillyer?"

"Not more zan it is mine!"

"Rudolph!" gasped the Countess inarticulately. "He is--he WAS my son!"

"Stoff and nonsense!" roared the Baron. "Remove her!--I am tired."

"Well," said Mr. Maddison, "I guess I don't much believe either of you;
but whether you know each other or not, you make such a remarkably fine
couple that I reckon you'd better get acquainted now. Come, Ri."

And before either Countess or Baron could interpose, their captors
had slipped out, the key was turned, and they were left to the dual
enjoyment of the antique apartment.

"Teufel!" shouted the Baron, kicking the door frantically. "Open him,
open him! I vill pay you a hondred pound! Goddam! Open!"

But only the gasps of the Countess answered him.

It is generally conceded that if you want to see the full depths of
brutality latent in man, you must thoroughly frighten him first. This
condition the Countess of Grillyer had exactly succeeded in fulfilling,
with the consequence that the Baron, hitherto the most complacent and
amiable of sons-in-law, seemed ambitious of rivalling the Turk. When he
perceived that no answer to his appeals was forthcoming, dark despair
for a moment overcame him. Then the fiendishly ingenious idea struck
him--might not a woman's