guilt was hers. She was glad that she, too, was
arrested, that she might have a chance to go before Monsieur Lefevre and
take upon her shoulders the dishonor which she knew belonged there.
Silent, she shrank back into her corner, not daring to look up.

"Monsieur Dufrenne," she heard Richard saying, quietly, "be so good as
to remember that it was I, not my wife, who gave the snuff box to
Hartmann. You have seen fit to place me under arrest. Very well, I will
tell my story to Monsieur Lefevre and abide by his decision. But
meanwhile, I beg that you will treat my wife with courtesy and respect.
She has had a very trying and terrible experience and I do not wonder
that she is unnerved. You may not know it, monsieur, but we were married
but five days ago, and this--" he glanced about the compartment with a
sad smile--"this, monsieur, is our honeymoon."

The Frenchman sank back, all his anger swept away. "It is pitiful,
monsieur, pitiful," he said, quietly. "Yet in what I now do, I am but
doing my duty." He turned to Grace. "Madame, I feel for you in your
suffering. You acted through love. Of that I am sure. But there is a
greater love than that of woman for man--the love of country. That is
the only love I understand." He turned away and sat for a long while
gazing out of the window.

In what seemed to Grace a very short time, they reached Paris, and here
she and Richard were conducted to a taxicab and soon found themselves at
the Prefecture.

Dufrenne left them, to announce his arrival to Monsieur Lefevre, and she
and her husband sat in an anteroom, closely guarded, waiting until the
time should arrive for them to be summoned before the Prefect.

The detective was still silent and preoccupied. He said little, but from
the caressing way in which he placed his hand upon hers, bidding her
cheer up, Grace knew that his love for her, at least, was left to her.
"Oh, Richard," she said, softly, turning her face to his, "I am so
sorry, so sorry! But I could not let you suffer, dear, for I love you--I
love you."

CHAPTER XXII

It was characteristic of Monsieur Etienne Lefevre, Prefect of Police of
Paris, that when he had once placed a case in the hands of one of his
men, he rarely ever interfered in any way with the latter's conduct of
it. Reports of progress he did not desire, nor encourage. Success was
the only report that he asked, and by thus throwing his subordinates
upon their own responsibility, he obtained