--"

"If Tellier so much as moves a finger, I will kick him down the stairs,"
added the Prince, still more calmly.

"But he has the papers from the notary!"

"That is nothing to me."

The duchess made a gesture of despair.

"Yet, after all," she cried, "that is a little thing beside this other.
Look at this," and she snatched a folded paper from the table at her
elbow. "She is a traitor to you--she has been playing with you--she has
been assisting these Englishmen to deceive you! You who are such a
stickler for honour in women no less than men! Look at this!"

"What is this paper?" asked the Prince, making no motion to take it from
her eager hand.

"It is a note which this impostor wrote to her and to her sister."

"And obtained how?" he questioned, a little pale, but keeping himself
well in hand.

"Obtained by Monsieur Tellier," replied the duchess. "It does not matter
how."

"No," said the Prince, "perhaps not; yet one can easily guess. By
bribing the chambermaid, perhaps; by forcing a lock; by rifling her
desk, examining her private papers. Oh, it is abominable!" and he turned
upon the Frenchman, fury in his eyes.

"No, no, Monsieur le Prince!" protested Tellier. "It was none of
these--I swear it! She left the note lying quite carelessly--"

But the Prince was upon him. With one hand at the back of his neck, he
steered him, sputtering, to the door.

"Glueck!" he cried, and pitched the Frenchman into the arms of the
faithful servant. The duchess, sitting within the room, caught the
sound of a scuffle, of fierce swearing; then a succession of dull bumps
sounded through the apartment. The Prince closed the door and turned
back to her.

"But, my dear Fritz!" she protested. "It may be true that Tellier is
abominable, yet sometimes one must use such instruments--surely, at
this moment, we are justified in using any instrument. I have paid him,
thank heaven! You must listen to reason. You have been fooled--we have
all been fooled--they have been playing with us--laughing at us behind
our backs for our simplicity--the girl as well as the others."

"No!" he said, fiercely. "No!"

"Fritz," she cried, her voice trembling, a mist before her eyes as she
looked at him, "you believe that I love you, do you not--oh, better than
anything else in the world. You believe that I desire your happiness!
But it must be happiness with honour, Fritz, as becomes a Markeld. You
have your name to consider, your house. You kn