elke?"

The King echoed the name almost in anger at the imputation. Armfelt
spoke torrentially. "It was he persuaded you to go against your own
judgment when you had the warning, and at last induced you to it by
offering to assume your own domino. If the assassins sought the King,
how came they to pass over one who wore the King's domino, and to
penetrate your own disguise that was like a dozen others? Because they
were informed of the change. But by whom--by whom? Who was it knew?"

"My God!" groaned the unfortunate King, who had in his time broken faith
with so many, and was now to suffer the knowledge of this broken faith
in one whom he had trusted above all others.

Baron Bjelke was arrested an hour later, arrested in the very act of
entering his own home. The men of Lillesparre's police had preceded him
thither to await his return. He was quite calm when they surged suddenly
about him, laid hands upon him, and formally pronounced him their
prisoner.

"I suppose," he said, "it was to have been inferred. Allow me to take my
leave of the Baroness, and I shall be at your disposal."

"My orders, Baron, are explicit," he was answered by the officer in
charge. "I am not to suffer you out of my sight."

"How? Am I to be denied so ordinary a boon?" His voice quivered with
sudden anger and something else.

"Such are my orders, Baron."

Bjelke pleaded for five minutes' grace for that leavetaking. But the
officer had his orders. He was no more than a machine. The Baron raised
his clenched hands in mute protest to the heavens, then let them fall
heavily.

"Very well," he said, and suffered them to thrust him back into his
carriage and carry him away to the waiting Lillesparre.

He found Armfelt in the office of the chief of the police, haranguing
Ankarstrom, who was already there under arrest. The favourite broke off
as Bjelke was brought in.

"You were privy to this infamy, Bjelke," he cried. "If the King does not
recover--"

"He will not recover." It was the cold, passionless voice of Ankarstrom
that spoke. "My pistol was loaded with rusty nails. I intended to make
quite sure of ridding my country of that perjured tyrant."

Armfelt stared at the prisoner a moment with furious, bloodshot eyes.
Then he broke into imprecations, stemmed only when Lillesparre ordered
Ankarstrom to be removed. When he was gone, the chief of police turned
to Bjelke.

"It grieves me, Baron, that we should meet thus, and it is with