e moonlit way.

* * * * *

In the suburban villa of the Comte d'Eblis a wine-flushed and very
noisy company danced on, supped at midnight, continued the revel into
the starlit morning hours. The place was a jungle of confetti.

Their host, restless, mortified, angry, perplexed by turns, was
becoming obsessed at length with dull premonitions and vaguer alarms.

He waddled out to the lawn several times, still wearing his fancy gilt
and tissue cap, and called:

"Nihla! Damnation! Answer me, you little fool!"

He went down to the river, where the gaily painted row-boats and punts
lay, and scanned the silvered flood, tortured by indefinite
apprehensions. About dawn he started toward the weed-grown, slippery
river-stairs for the last time, still crowned with his tinsel cap; and
there in the darkness he found his aged boat-man, fishing for gudgeon
with a four-cornered net suspended to the end of a bamboo pole.

"Have you see anything of Mademoiselle Nihla?" he demanded, in a
heavy, unsteady voice, tremulous with indefinable fears.

"Monsieur le Comte, Mademoiselle Quellen went out in a canoe with a
young gentleman."

"W-what is that you tell me!" faltered the Comte d'Eblis, turning grey
in the face.

"Last night, about ten o'clock, M'sieu le Comte. I was out in the
moonlight fishing for eels. She came down to the shore--took a canoe
yonder by the willows. The young man had a double-bladed paddle. They
were singing."

"They--they have not returned?"

"No, M'sieu le Comte----"

"Who was the--man?"

"I could not see----"

"Very well." He turned and looked down the dusky river out of
light-coloured, murderous eyes. Then, always awkward in his gait, he
retraced his steps to the house. There a servant accosted him on the
terrace:

"The telephone, if Monsieur le Comte pleases----"

"Who is calling?" he demanded with a flare of fury.

"Paris, if it pleases Monsieur le Comte."

The Count d'Eblis went to his own quarters, seated himself, and picked
up the receiver:

"Who is it?" he asked thickly.

"Max Freund."

"What has h-happened?" he stammered in sudden terror.

Over the wire came the distant reply, perfectly clear and distinct:

"Ferez Bey was arrested in his own house at dinner last evening, and
was immediately conducted to the frontier, escorted by Government
detectives.... Is Nihla with you?"

The Count's teeth were chattering now. He managed to say:

"No, I don'