s though she sensed something
sinister that lay in wait for her round the next corner, and all her
efforts to recapture the radiant exultation of her mood of yestereve, to
shake off the nervous dread that had laid hold of her, failed miserably.

Her breakfast was standing untouched on the table beside her bed. She
regarded it distastefully. Then, recalling with a wry smile Baroni's
dictum that "good food, and plenty of good food, means voice," she
reluctantly began to eat, idly turning over the while the pages of one of
the newspapers which Milling had placed beside the breakfast tray. It
was an illustrated weekly, and numbered amongst its staff an enterprising
young journalist, possessed of an absolute genius for nosing out such
matters as the principal people concerned in them particularly desired
kept secret. Those the enterprising young journalist's paper served up
piping-hot in their _Tattle of the Town_ column--a column denounced by
the pilloried few and devoured with eager interest by the rest of the
world.

Diana, sipping her coffee, turned to it half-heartedly, hoping to find
some odd bit of news that might serve to distract her thoughts.

There were the usual sly hits at several well-known society women whose
public charities covered a multitude of private sins, followed by a very
inadequately veiled reference to the chief actors in a recent divorce
case, and then--

Diana's eyes glued themselves to the printed page before her. Very
deliberately she set down her cup on the tray beside her, and taking up
the paper again, re-read the paragraph which had so suddenly riveted her
attention. It ran as follows:--

"Is it true that the _nom de plume_ of a dramatist, well-known in London
circles, masks the identity of the son of a certain romantic royal duke
who contracted a morganatic marriage with one of the most beautiful
Englishwomen of the seventies?

"It would be curious if there proved to be a connecting link between this
whisper and the recent disappearance from the stage of the popular
actress who has been so closely associated with the plays emanating from
the gifted pen of that same dramatist.

"Interested readers should carefully watch forthcoming events in the
little state of Ruvania."

Diana stared at the newspaper incredulously, and a half-stifled
exclamation broke from her.

There was--there _could_ be--no possible doubt to whom the paragraph bore
reference. "_A well-known dramatis