"You also?" The Count was a little surprised. He himself went as friend
and adviser to the bereaved girl, a position which a certain letter had
secured for him. That letter in three brief lines had told the girl to
trust Poltavo. It was about this letter that Frank had come, and he came
straight to the point.

"Count Poltavo," he said, "the day after Mr. Farrington's disappearance
a messenger brought a letter for Miss Gray."

Poltavo nodded.

"So I understand," he said, smoothly.

"So you know," challenged the other, "because it concerned you. It was a
letter in which Doris was told to trust you absolutely; it was a letter
also which gave her hope that the man whose body was found in the Thames
was not that of Farrington."

Poltavo frowned.

"That is not a view that has been accepted by the authorities," he said
quickly. "The jury had no doubt that this was the body of Mr.
Farrington, and brought in a verdict accordingly."

Frank nodded.

"What a jury thinks and what Scotland Yard thinks," he said, drily, "are
not always in agreement. As a result of that letter," he went on, "Miss
Gray has reposed a great deal of trust in you, Count, and day by day my
efforts to serve her have been made more difficult by her attitude. I am
a plain-speaking Englishman, and I am coming to the point, right
now,"--he thumped the table: "Doris Gray's mind is becoming poisoned
against one who has no other object in life than to serve her
faithfully."

Count Poltavo shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

"My dear young man," he said, smoothly, "you do not come to me, I trust,
to act as your agent in order to induce Miss Gray to take any other view
of you than she does. Because if you do," he went on suavely, "I am
afraid that I cannot help you very much. There is an axiom in the
English language to which I subscribe most thoroughly, and it is that
'all is fair in love and war.'"

"In love?" repeated Frank, looking the other straight in the eyes.

"In love," the Count asserted, with a nod of his head, "it is not the
privilege of any human being to monopolize in his heart all the love in
the world, or to say this thing I love and none other shall love it.
Those qualities in Miss Gray which are so adorable to you are equally
adorable to me."

He spread out his hands in deprecation.

"It is a pity," he said, with his little smile, "and I would do anything
to avoid an unpleasant outcome to our rivalry. It is a fact that cannot
be