cret even from you. Say--will you not?"

With a malediction at his heart, but with a smile on his lips, Captain
Ducie made reply. "Pray offer no excuses, my dear Platzoff, where none
are needed. What I want is to see the Diamond itself, not to know where
it is kept. Such a piece of information would be of no earthly use to
me, and it would involve a responsibility which, under any
circumstances, I should hardly care to assume."

"It is well; you are an English gentleman," said the Russian, with a
ceremonious inclination of the head, "and your words are based on wisdom
and truth. It is necessary that I should blindfold you: oblige me with
your handkerchief."

Ducie with a smile handed over his handkerchief, and Platzoff proceeded
to blindfold him--an operation which was rapidly and effectually
performed by the deft fingers of the Russian.

"Now, give me your hand and come with me, but do not speak till you are
spoken to."

So Ducie laid a finger in the Russian's thin, cold palm, and the latter,
taking a small bronze hand-lamp, conducted his bandaged companion from
the room.

In two minutes after leaving the smoke-room Ducie's geographical ideas
of the place were completely at fault. Platzoff led him through so many
corridors and passages, turning now to the right hand, and now to the
left--he guided him up and down so many flights of stairs, now of stone
and now of wood, that he lost his reckoning entirely and felt as though
he were being conducted through some place far more spacious than Bon
Repos. He counted the number of stairs in each flight that he went up or
down. In two or three cases the numbers tallied, which induced him to
think that Platzoff was conducting him twice over the same ground, in
order perhaps the more effectually to confuse his ideas as to the
position of the place to which he was being led.

After several minutes spent thus in silent perambulation of the old
house, they halted for a moment while Platzoff unlocked a door, after
which they passed forward into a room, in the middle of which Ducie was
left standing while Platzoff relocked the door, and then busied himself
for a minute in trimming the lamp he had brought with him, which had
been his only guide through the dark and silent house, for the servants
had all gone to bed more than an hour ago.

Ducie, thus left to himself for a little while, had time for reflection.
The floor on which he was standing was covered with a thick, soft