ithout a hearing." As he spoke,
Duvall and Grace came into the room.

The Prefect looked at his young assistant with an expression both grave
and sad. He had always been very fond of Duvall--he was fond of him
still. The whole matter had hurt him very deeply.

"Monsieur Duvall," he said, without further preliminaries, "Monsieur
Dufrenne tells me that you, after recovering Monsieur de Grissac's snuff
box from Dr. Hartmann, deliberately returned it to him last night, in
order to secure your liberty and that of your wife. Is this true?"

"Yes." Duvall's voice was calm, even, emotionless. "It is true."

Lefevre recoiled as though he had received a blow. "Can you dare to come
before me, and tell me such a thing as that?"

"It was my fault, Monsieur Lefevre," cried Grace, going up to him.
"Richard begged me not to tell--commanded me not to tell, but they were
torturing him--they were driving him mad. Oh, I could not stand it--I
could not!"

"You should have considered your duty, madame, not your husband,"
remarked the Prefect, coldly, then turned to Duvall.

"Young man," he said, "you have done a terrible thing--perhaps even now,
you do not realize how terrible a thing. I regret that I did not inform
you at the time I placed the case in your hands, but the matter is one
which, at all costs, I wished to have remain a secret. Now it makes
little difference. Monsieur de Grissac has for many months been carrying
on with the Foreign Office a correspondence regarding the relations of
France and England in the matter of Morocco. Many details of action have
been settled which, in the event of certain eventualities, would
constitute the joint policy of the two nations. I need hardly say that
these details and policies are of such a nature as to cause, if known,
an immediate declaration of war by the third nation involved. This
correspondence, Monsieur de Grissac, unwilling to trust to the ordinary
cipher in use for such purposes, carried on in a code of his own; one
which he regarded as absolutely proof against all attempts at solution.
That desperate attempts to obtain copies of the correspondence would be
made he well knew, and in spite of all precautions, our enemies, by
bribing a subordinate, did, some time ago, manage to secure copies of
many of the most important letters and documents. Their attempts at
reading them, however, were fruitless. Without the cipher, and its key,
they could do nothing.

"How they ultimately l