l
existing in the part of California where I was born. He had heard me
sing Spanish songs. We had sung them together--one or two I had taught
him. But I had not taught him the language. He learned that, and three
or four others at least, as a boy, when first he thought of taking up a
diplomatic career.

They were so few words, and so quickly spoken, that I--remembering the
warder--almost hoped they might pass unnoticed. But the man in uniform
came nearer to us at once, looking angry and suspicious.

"That is forbidden," he said to Ivor. Then, turning sharply to me. "What
language was that?"

"Spanish," I answered. "He only bade me good-bye. We have been--very
dear friends, and there was a misunderstanding, but--it's over now. It
was natural he shouldn't want you to hear his last words to me."

"Nevertheless, it is forbidden," repeated the warder obstinately, "and
though the five minutes you were granted together are not over yet, the
prisoner must go with me now. He has forfeited the rest of his time, and
must be reported."

With this, he ordered Ivor to leave the room, in a tone which sounded to
me so brutal that I should have liked him to be shot, and the whole
French police force exterminated. To hear a little underbred policeman
dare to speak like that to my big, brave, handsome Englishman, and to
know that it would be childish and undignified of Ivor to resist--oh, I
could have killed the creature with my own hands--I think!

As for Ivor, he said not another word, except "good-bye," smiling half
sadly, half with a twinkle of grim humour. Then he went out, with his
head high: and just at the door he threw me back one look. It said as
plainly as if he had spoken: "Remember, I know you won't fail me."

I did indeed remember, and I prayed that I should have pluck and courage
not to fail. But it was a very hard thing that he had asked me to do,
and he had said well in saying that he would not ask it of me if it did
not mean more than his life.

The words he had whispered so hastily and unexpectedly in Spanish, were
these: "Go to the room of the murder alone, and on the window balcony
find in a box under flower-pots a folded document. Take this to Maxine.
Every moment counts."

So it seemed that it was always of her he thought--of Maxine de Renzie!
And I, of all people in the world, was to help him, with her.

As I thought of this task he'd set me, and of all it meant, it appeared
more and more incredible tha