t note also has been made public. It reads as
follows:

'"Maude Cibras.--You may come here to-night after dark. Walk to the
south side of the house, come up the steps to the balcony, and pass in
through the open window to my room. Remember, however, that you have
nothing to expect from me, and that from to-night I blot you eternally
from my mind: but I will hear your story, which I know beforehand to be
false. Destroy this note. PHARANX."'

As I progressed with my tale, I came to notice that over the
countenance of Prince Zaleski there grew little by little a singular
fixed aspect. His small, keen features distorted themselves into an
expression of what I can only describe as an abnormal _inquisitiveness_
--an inquisitiveness most impatient, arrogant, in its intensity.
His pupils, contracted each to a dot, became the central _puncta_
of two rings of fiery light; his little sharp teeth seemed to
gnash. Once before I had seen him look thus greedily, when, grasping a
Troglodyte tablet covered with half-effaced hieroglyphics--his fingers
livid with the fixity of his grip--he bent on it that strenuous
inquisition, that ardent questioning gaze, till, by a species of
mesmeric dominancy, he seemed to wrench from it the arcanum it hid from
other eyes; then he lay back, pale and faint from the too arduous
victory.

When I had read Lord Pharanx's letter, he took the paper eagerly from
my hand, and ran his eyes over the passage.

'Tell me--the end,' he said.

'Maude Cibras,' I went on, 'thus invited to a meeting with the earl,
failed to make her appearance at the appointed time. It happened that
she had left her lodgings in the village early that very morning, and,
for some purpose or other, had travelled to the town of Bath. Randolph,
too, went away the same day in the opposite direction to Plymouth. He
returned on the following morning, the 9th; soon after walked over to
Lee; and entered into conversation with the keeper of the inn where
Cibras lodged; asked if she was at home, and on being told that she had
gone away, asked further if she had taken her luggage with her; was
informed that she had, and had also announced her intention of at once
leaving England. He then walked away in the direction of the Hall. On
this day Hester Dyett noticed that there were many articles of value
scattered about the earl's room, notably a tiara of old Brazilian
brilliants, sometimes worn by the late Lady Pharanx. Randolph--who was
present