u hear all that I have to tell, you will be forced to admit that I
placed your high repute above every other consideration in declaring
my love before, rather than after, you learned how and why you came to
Switzerland."

His manner was becoming more calm and judicial each moment. It reacted
on Helen, who gazed at him with a very natural surprise in her still
tear-laden eyes.

"That, at least, is simple enough," she cried.

"No. It is menacing, ugly, a trick calculated to wound you sorely.
When first it came to my ears I refused to credit the vile meanness of
it. You saw that telegram which reached my hands as we quitted the
hotel? It is a reply to certain inquiries I caused to be made in
London. Read it."

Helen took the crumpled sheets of thin paper and began to read. Bower
watched her face with a maleficent confidence that might have warned
her had she seen it. But she paid heed to nothing else at that moment
save the mysterious words scrawled in a foreign handwriting:

"Have investigated 'Firefly' incident fully. Pargrave
compelled Mackenzie to explain. The American, Charles K.
Spencer, recently residing at Embankment Hotel, is paying
Miss Helen Wynton's expenses, including cost of publishing
her articles. He followed her on the day of her departure,
and has since asked Mackenzie for introduction. Pargrave
greatly annoyed, and holds Mackenzie at your disposal.

"KENNETT."

Helen went very white; but she spoke with a firmness that was amazing,
even to Bower. "Who is Kennett?" she said.

"One of my confidential clerks."

"And Pargrave?"

"The proprietor of 'The Firefly.'"

"Did Millicent know of this--plot?"

"Yes."

Then she murmured a broken prayer. "Ah, dear Heaven!" she complained,
"for what am I punished so bitterly?"

Karl, the voluble and sharp-eyed, retailed a bit of gossip to Stampa
that evening as they smoked in Johann Klucker's chalet. "As I was
driving the cattle to the middle alp to-day, I saw our _fraeulein_ in
the arms of the big _voyageur_," he said.

Stampa withdrew his pipe from between his teeth. "Say that again," he
whispered, as though afraid of being overheard.

Karl did so, with fuller details.

"Are you sure?" asked Stampa.

Karl sniffed scornfully. "_Ach, Gott!_ How could I err?" he cried.
"There are not so many pretty women in the hotel that I should not
recognize our _fraeulein_. And who would forget He