. Flocon, gleefully. "_ Au secret_, if you know what
that means--in a cell separate and apart, where no one is
permitted to see or speak to her."

"Surely not that? Jack--Papillon--this must not be. I beg of you,
implore, insist, that you will get his lordship to interpose."

"But, sir, how can I? You must not ask impossibilities. The
Contessa Castagneto is really an Italian subject now."

"She is English by birth, and whether or no, she is a woman, a
high-bred lady; and it is abominable, unheard-of, to subject her
to such monstrous treatment," said the General.

"But these gentlemen declare that they are fully warranted, that
she has put herself in the wrong--greatly, culpably in the wrong."

"I don't believe it!" cried the General, indignantly. "Not from
these chaps, a pack of idiots, always on the wrong tack! I don't
believe a word, not if they swear."

"But they have documentary evidence--papers of the most damaging
kind against her."

"Where? How?"

"He--M. le Juge--has been showing me a note-book;" and the
General's eyes, following Jack Papillon's, were directed to a
small _carnet_, or memorandum-book, which the Judge, interpreting
the glance, was tapping significantly with his finger.

Then the Judge said blandly, "It is easy to perceive that you
protest, M. le General, against that lady's arrest. Is it so?
Well, we are not called upon to justify it to you, not in the very
least. But we are dealing with a brave man, a gentleman, an
officer of high rank and consideration, and you shall know things
that we are not bound to tell, to you or to any one."

"First," he continued, holding up the note-book, "do you know what
this is? Have you ever seen it before?"

"I am dimly conscious of the fact, and yet I cannot say when or
where."

"It is the property of one of your fellow travellers--an Italian
called Ripaldi."

"Ripaldi?" said the General, remembering with some uneasiness that
he had seen the name at the bottom of the Countess's telegram.
"Ah! now I understand."

"You had heard of it, then? In what connection?" asked the Judge,
a little carelessly, but it was a suddenly planned pitfall.

"I now understand," replied the General, perfectly on his guard,
"why the note-book was familiar to me. I had seen it in that man's
hands in the waiting-room. He was writing in it."

"Indeed? A favourite occupation evidently. He was fond of
confiding in that note-book, and committed to it much that he
never e