said Miss Krieff, slowly. She rose from her chair, where
she had taken her seat, and looked fixedly at him for some time
without one word.

"You appear to be interested in this family," said she at length.
Gualtier looked at her for a moment--then his eyes fell.

"How can I be otherwise than interested in one like you?" he
murmured.

"The General befriended you. He found you in London, and offered you
a large salary to teach his daughter."

"The General was very kind, and is so still."

Miss Krieff paused, and looked at him with keen and vigilant
scrutiny.

"Would you be shocked," she asked at length, "if you were to hear
that the General had an enemy?"

"That would altogether depend upon who the enemy might be."

"An enemy," continued Miss Krieff, with intense bitterness of
tone--"in his own family?"

"That would be strange," said Gualtier; "but I can imagine an enemy
with whom I would not be offended."

"What would you think," asked Miss Krieff, after another pause,
during which her keen scrutinizing gaze was fixed on Gualtier, "if
that enemy had for years been on the watch, and under a thin veil of
good-nature had concealed the most vengeful feelings? What would you
say if that enemy had grown so malignant that only one desire
remained, and that was--to do some injury in some way to General
Pomeroy?"

"You must tell me more," said Gualtier, "before I answer. I am fully
capable of understanding all that hate may desire or accomplish. But
has this enemy of whom you speak _done_ any thing? Has she found out
any thing? Has she ever discovered any way in which her hate may be
gratified?"

"You seem to take it for granted that his enemy is a woman!"

"Of course."

"Well, then, I will answer you. She _has_ found out something--or,
rather, she is in the way toward finding out something--which may yet
enable her to gratify her desires."

"Have you any objections to tell what that may be?" asked Gualtier.

Miss Krieff said nothing for some time, during which each looked
earnestly at the other.

"No," said she at last.

"What is it?"

"It is something that I have found among the General's papers," said
she, in a low voice.

"You have examined the General's papers, then?"

"What I said implied that much, I believe," said Miss Krieff, coolly.

"And what is it?"

"A certain mysterious document."

"Mysterious document?" repeated Gualtier.

"Yes."

"What?"

"It is a writing in cipher."

"An