the borders of To-day.
Oh, we shall hear at last, my heart, a cheering welcome cried
As o'er a clattering drawbridge through the Gate of Dreams we ride!

CONTENTS

CHAPTER
I "Events, Events"
II The Claibornes, of Washington
III Dark Tidings
IV John Armitage a Prisoner
V A Lost Cigarette Case
VI Toward the Western Stars
VII On the Dark Deck
VIII "The King Is Dead; Long Live the King"
IX "This Is America, Mr. Armitage"
X John Armitage Is Shadowed
XI The Toss of a Napkin
XII A Camp in the Mountains
XIII The Lady of the Pergola
XIV An Enforced Interview
XV Shirley Learns a Secret
XVI Narrow Margins
XVII A Gentleman in Hiding
XVIII An Exchange of Messages
XIX Captain Claiborne on Duty
XX The First Ride Together
XXI The Comedy of a Sheepfold
XXII The Prisoner at the Bungalow
XXIII The Verge of Morning
XXIV The Attack in the Road
XXV The Port of Missing Men
XXVI "Who Are You, John Armitage?"
XXVII Decent Burial
XXVIII John Armitage

CHAPTER I

"EVENTS, EVENTS"

Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion.
--_Troilus and Cressida._

"The knowledge that you're alive gives me no pleasure," growled the grim
old Austrian premier.

"Thank you!" laughed John Armitage, to whom he had spoken. "You have lost
none of your old amiability; but for a renowned diplomat, you are
remarkably frank. When I called on you in Paris, a year ago, I was able
to render you--I believe you admitted it--a slight service."

Count Ferdinand von Stroebel bowed slightly, but did not take his eyes
from the young man who sat opposite him in his rooms at the Hotel Monte
Rosa in Geneva. On the table between them stood an open despatch box, and
about it lay a number of packets of papers which the old gentleman, with
characteristic caution, had removed to his own side of the table before
admitting his caller. He was a burly old man, with massive shoulders and
a great head thickly covered with iron-gray hair.

He trusted no one, and this accounted for his presence in Geneva in
March, of the year 1903, whither he had gone to receive the report of the
secret agents whom he had lately despatched to Paris on an errand of
peculiar delicacy. The agents had failed in their mission, and Von
Stroebel was not tolerant of failure. Perhaps if he had known that within
a week the tapers would bur