t word startled her. That German name stood for all
the evils of the time. It was the inaccessible throne of hell.

Verrinder was startled by it, too.

"In Berlin!" he exclaimed, and nodded his head. "Now we are getting
somewhere. Would you mind telling me the circumstances?"

She blushed a furious scarlet.

"I--I'd rather not."

"I must insist."

"Please send me to the Tower and have me imprisoned for life. I'd
rather be there than here. Or better yet--have me shot. It would make
me happier than anything you could do."

"I'm afraid that your happiness is not the main object of the moment.
Will you be so good as to tell me how you met Sir Joseph in--in
Berlin."

Marie Louise drew a deep breath. The past that she had tried to
smother under a new life must be confessed at such a time of all
times!

"Well, you know that Sir Joseph had a daughter; the two children
up-stairs are hers, and--and what's to become of them, in Heaven's
name?"

"One problem at a time, if you don't mind. Sir Joseph had a daughter.
That would be Mrs. Oakby."

"Yes. Her husband died before her second baby was born, and she died
soon after. And Sir Joseph and Lady Webling mourned for her bitterly,
and--well, a year or so later they were traveling on the Continent--in
Germany, they were, and one night they went to the Winter Garten in
Berlin--the big music-hall, you know. Well, they were sitting far
back, and an American team of musicians came on--the Musical Mokes, we
were called."

"We?"

She bent her head in shame. "I was one of them. I played a xylophone
and a saxophone and an accordion--all sorts of things. Well, Lady
Webling gave a little gasp when she saw me, and she looked at Sir
Joseph--so she told me afterward--and then they got up and stole 'way
up front just as I left the stage--to make a quick change, you know. I
came back--in tights, playing a big trombone, prancing round and
making an awful noise. Lady Webling gave a little scream; nobody heard
her because I made a loud blat on the trombone in the ear of the
black-face clown, and he gave a shriek and did a funny fall, and--"

"But, pardon me--why did Lady Webling scream?"

"Because I looked like her dead daughter. It was so horrible to see
her child come out of the grave in--in tights, blatting a trombone at
a clown in that big variety theater."

"I can quite understand. And then--"

"Well, Sir Joseph came round to the stage door and sent in his card.
The man who