htly
up the broad steps. Peter Petroff opened the door of the flat, bowing
low, and conducted him to his master's sanctum. Evidently he was
expected, for the coffee apparatus stood ready on the Moorish table
beside the cosy chair which he was wont to occupy. The Prince, who was
standing on a white bear's skin by the mantel, motioned him to it,
saying:

"Ah, Phadrig, my friend, punctual, of course; and equally, of course,
you have something important to impart. Your wire just caught me in
time to put off an engagement which, happily, is of no great
consequence. There's the coffee, and you'll find the cigars you like in
the second drawer. Now, what is the news?"

His guest filled a cup of coffee and took a cigar and lit it before he
replied. Then, turning to the Prince, he said in his usual slow, even
tone:

"Highness, I regret to say that my news is both urgent and bad."

"It would naturally be urgent," said the Prince, turning quickly towards
him, "but bad I hardly expected. Well, all news cannot be good. What is
it?"

"I fear that my warning was even more urgent than I thought it myself--I
mean, in point of time. Your Highness is already being watched."

"What! A Prince of the Empire, the man whom they call the Modern
Skobeleff, an intimate of Nicholas! What should I be watched for?"
exclaimed the Prince, half angry and half astonished. "The thing is
ridiculous; another of your dreams!"

"Ridiculous it may be, Highness," replied Phadrig, quite unruffled, "but
it is no dream; and, moreover, the eyes which are watching you are keen
ones--and they are everywhere. You are under the surveillance of the
International Police."

These were not words which even a Prince of the Holy Russian Empire
cared to hear. Oscarovitch was silent for a few moments, for the
earnestness, and yet the calmness, with which they were spoken made it
impossible for him to doubt them. As he had asked, what could such a man
as he be watched for by this thousand-eyed organisation of which he
himself was one of the supreme Directors? It was impossible that
these people could suspect his great scheme of treachery and
self-aggrandisement. That was known to only three persons in the
world--himself, Phadrig, and the Princess Hermia; and the Princess, the
woman who had willingly sacrificed her brilliant young husband to her
guilty love and her boundless ambition--no, she could be no traitress.
It must be something else: and yet what?

He took t