at's absurd! She was not in the
plot!"

"Is it the head of the plot who is addressing me?" inquired the duchess,
icily. "No doubt my nephew has already told you--"

The Prince stopped her.

"The Viscount Cranford answers to me," he said, briefly.

The duchess paled as she looked at him.

"Not that, Fritz!" she cried. "Not that!"

"Too late, madame," he said. "My honour demands it."

The duchess shivered, and her face seemed suddenly to shrink and age.
Then she stood proudly upright. What honour demanded she would be the
last to evade.

"Perhaps monsieur will deny," she said, looking at Cranford, coldly,
"that he wrote this note to her and her sister the very first day of
his sojourn here?" and she held out to him the slip of paper.

Cranford took it and read it at a glance, while Nell stared at it with
starting eyes.

"No," he said, "I don't deny that I wrote it; but--"

"And perhaps mademoiselle herself will deny that she asserted to
Monsieur Tellier that she did not know her rescuer? Here are her words,"
and she produced a second note.

"I deny nothing," said Susie, proudly, and she looked the duchess
unflinchingly in the face.

Cranford walked straight over to the Prince of Markeld.

"Wasn't it Miss Rushford who told you?" he asked.

"No, it was the note," answered the Prince, fiercely.

"Which Tellier stole from Miss Rushford's desk," added Cranford,
sternly, "leaving this tracing in its stead," and he took from his
pocketbook a slip of paper. "Such methods are doubtless characteristic
of the Paris police, but they seem to me almost as unworthy as those
employed by us."

"You are right," agreed the Prince, his face livid. "That dog shall pay
for it!"

"My nephew had nothing whatever to do with it," broke in the duchess,
sharply. "It was I who secured the note, who persuaded him to--"

But the Prince stopped her with a gesture.

"Miss Rushford was not in the plot," continued Cranford, earnestly. "I
hope you will believe me. That it should have come so near wrecking my
own life was bad enough; that it should wreck another's--an innocent
person's--that would be frightful! She warned me explicitly that she
would no longer be a party to the deception, that she was going to tell
you--I thought she had told you. I remember well how warmly she spoke of
your cause; how she detested the course I was pursuing--how she made me
ashamed of myself--ashamed to look at her. I suppose some mistaken
notion o