ey will be allowed to proceed no farther,--the axe is sharpened; for
the last man who adjusted his mask was a spy,--was the Secretary of the
Secret Service."

Delphine could not have grown paler than was usual with her of late. She
flashed her eye upon me.

"He was, it may be, Monsieur himself," she said.

"I do not claim the honor of that post."

"But you were there, nevertheless,--a spy!"

"Hush, Delphine! It would be absurd to quarrel. I was there for the
recovery of this stone, having heard that it was in a cellar,--which,
stupidly enough, I had insisted should be a wine-cellar."

"It was, then"----

"In a salt-cellar,--a blunder which, as you do not speak English, you
cannot comprehend. I never mix with treason, and did not wish to assist
at your pastimes. I speak now, that you may escape."

"If Monsieur betrays his friends, the police, why should I expect a
kinder fate?"

"When I use the police, they are my servants, not my friends. I simply
warn you, that, before sunrise, you will be safer travelling than
sleeping,--safer next week in Vienna than in Paris."

"Thank you! And the intelligence is the price of the diamond? If I had
not chanced to pick it up, my throat," and she clasped it with her
fingers, "had been no slenderer than the others?"

"Delphine, will you remember, should you have occasion to do so in
Vienna, that it is just possible for an Englishman to have affections,
and sentiments, and, in fact, sensations? that, with him, friendship can
be inviolate, and to betray it an impossibility? And even were it
not, I, Mademoiselle, have not the pleasure to be classed by you as a
friend."

"You err. I esteem Monsieur highly."

I was impressed by her coolness.

"Let me see if you comprehend the matter," I demanded.

"Perfectly. The arrest will be used to-night, the guillotine to-morrow."

"You will take immediate measures for flight?"

"No,--I do not see that life has value. I shall be the debtor of him who
takes it."

"A large debt. Delphine, I exact a promise of you. I do not care to have
endangered myself for nothing. It is not worth while to make your mother
unhappy. Life is not yours to throw away. I appeal to your magnanimity."

"'Affections, sentiments, sensations!'" she quoted. "Your own danger
for the affection,--it is an affair of the heart! Mme. de St. Cyr's
unhappiness,--there is the sentiment. You are angry, Monsieur,--that
must be the sensation."

"Delphine, I am waiting