me as far as the passage,"
he whispered in my ear; "I may want to speak to you at the last moment."

I went out to the door, the agent standing below me in the front
garden. The Count came back alone, and drew me a few steps inside the
passage.

"Remember the Third condition!" he whispered. "You shall hear from me,
Mr. Hartright--I may claim from you the satisfaction of a gentleman
sooner than you think for." He caught my hand before I was aware of
him, and wrung it hard--then turned to the door, stopped, and came back
to me again.

"One word more," he said confidentially. "When I last saw Miss
Halcombe, she looked thin and ill. I am anxious about that admirable
woman. Take care of her, sir! With my hand on my heart, I solemnly
implore you, take care of Miss Halcombe!"

Those were the last words he said to me before he squeezed his huge
body into the cab and drove off.

The agent and I waited at the door a few moments looking after him.
While we were standing together, a second cab appeared from a turning a
little way down the road. It followed the direction previously taken
by the Count's cab, and as it passed the house and the open garden
gate, a person inside looked at us out of the window. The stranger at
the Opera again!--the foreigner with a scar on his left cheek.

"You wait here with me, sir, for half an hour more!" said Monsieur
Rubelle.

"I do."

We returned to the sitting-room. I was in no humour to speak to the
agent, or to allow him to speak to me. I took out the papers which the
Count had placed in my hands, and read the terrible story of the
conspiracy told by the man who had planned and perpetrated it.

THE STORY CONTINUED BY ISIDOR, OTTAVIO, BALDASSARE FOSCO

(Count of the Holy Roman Empire, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the
Brazen Crown, Perpetual Arch-Master of the Rosicrucian Masons of
Mesopotamia; Attached (in Honorary Capacities) to Societies Musical,
Societies Medical, Societies Philosophical, and Societies General
Benevolent, throughout Europe; etc. etc. etc.)

THE COUNT'S NARRATIVE

In the summer of eighteen hundred and fifty I arrived in England,
charged with a delicate political mission from abroad. Confidential
persons were semi-officially connected with me, whose exertions I was
authorised to direct, Monsieur and Madame Rubelle being among the
number. Some weeks of spare time were at my disposal, before I entered
on my functions by establishing mys