ry good English, though he was
typically Italian. "But I warn you that mischief is meant if you do
not obey. Duperre told me so. Like myself you are paid to act as
directed and to keep a silent tongue. Only six months ago Jean Durand,
in Paris, refused to obey a demand, and to-day he is in the convict
prison in Toulon serving a sentence of seven years. He attempted to
reveal facts concerning 'The Golden Face,' but the judge at the Seine
Assizes ridiculed the idea of our head director living respected and
unsuspected in England. You may believe yourself safe and able to
adopt a defiant attitude, but I, for one, can tell you that such a
policy can only bring upon you dire misfortune. Once one becomes a
servant of 'The Golden Face' one remains so always, extremely well
paid and highly prosperous providing one is alert and shrewd, but
ruined and imprisoned if one either makes a slip or grows defiant. I
hope you will understand me, signor. I have been given a master-key to
the hotel. It will open Lady Lydbrook's door. Here it is."

"But I really cannot accede to this!" I declared. "Though I have
fallen into a clever trap and have assisted in certain schemes, yet I
have never acted as the actual thief."

"'The Golden Face,' whose marvelous activity and influence we must
all admire, has decided that you must do so in this case," he said
inexorably.

I craved time to consider the matter, and after some further
conversation told him I would meet him near the bandstand on the
sea-front at noon next day, for we did not want to be associated in
the hotel.

That night I slept but little, for I realized that if I refused I must
assuredly be cast into the melting-pot as one who might, in return,
give Rayne away. I thought of Lola with whom I was so madly in love,
and whom I intended to eventually rescue from the criminal atmosphere
in which, though innocent, she was compelled to live.

I hated to take such a downward step, though the innocent-looking
little attache-case with the steel grips and spring bottom was there
by my bedside ready for use. I was torn between the path of honesty
from which, alas! I had been slowly slipping ever since I had made
that accursed compact with Rudolph Rayne, and my love for Lola, who
had, I knew, every confidence in me, while at the same time she was
growing highly suspicious of her father.

The reader will readily realize my feelings that night. I had taken a
false step, and to withdraw would