ods!' Is she not worth it all?" with a gesture of his arms
which sent the live coals of his pipe comet-like across the intervening
space. "Is she not worth it all?"

"Who?--Madame de Longueville? I thought she was dead these two hundred
years!"

"Damn it, Maurice!"

"I will, if you say so. The situation is equal to a good deal of plain,
honest damning." Maurice banged his fist again. "John, sit down and
listen to me. I'll not sit still and see you made a fool. Promises?
This woman will keep none. When she has wrung you dry she will fling
you aside. At this moment she is probably laughing behind your back.
You were brought here for this purpose. Threats and bribes were without
effect. Love might accomplish what the other two had failed to do. You
know little of the ways of the world. Do you know that this house party
is scandalous, for all its innocence? Do you know that Madame's name
would be a byword were it known that we have been here more than two
weeks, alone with two women? Who but a woman that feels herself above
convention would dare offer this affront to society? Do you know why
Madame the countess came? Company for Madame? No; she was to play make
love to me to keep me out of the way. Ass that I was, I never suspected
till too late! Madame's name is not Sylvia Amerbach; it is--"

The door opened unceremoniously and in walked the Colonel.

"Your voices are rather high, gentlemen," he said calmly, and sat down
in an easy chair.

CHAPTER XIII. BEING OF COMPLICATIONS NOT RECKONED ON

Maurice leaped to his feet, a menace in his eyes. The Colonel crossed
his legs, rested his hands on the hilt of his saber, and smiled.

"I could not resist the desire to have a friendly chat with you."

"You have come cursed inopportune," snarled Maurice. "What do you want?"

"I want to give you the countersigns, so that when you start for
Bleiberg to-morrow morning you'll have no trouble."

"Bleiberg!" exclaimed Maurice.

"Bleiberg. Madame desires me to say to you that you are to start for
that city in the morning, to fetch those slips of parchment which have
caused us all these years of worry. Ah, my friend," to Fitzgerald,
"Madame would be cheap at twenty millions! You sly dog! And I never
suspected it."

Fitzgerald sent him a scowl. "You are damned impertinent, sir."

"Impertinent?" The Colonel uncrossed his legs and brought his knees
together. "Madame has been under my care since she was a child,
Monsieur;