had paid
willingly enough for their warning. Others had put off the payment; for
there were many Jews, then as now, in Dantzig; slow payers requiring
something stronger than a threat to make them disburse.

De Casimir therefore quitted the Rathhaus among the first to go, and
walked through the busy streets to his rooms in the Langenmarkt,
where he not only lived but had a small office to which orderlies and
aides-de-camp came by day or night. Two sentries kept guard on the
pavement. Since the spring, this office had been one of the busiest
military posts in Dantzig. Its doors were open at all hours, and in
truth many of de Casimir's assistants preferred to transact their
business in the dark.

There might be some recalcitrant debtor driven by stress of circumstance
to clear his conscience to-night. It would be as well, de Casimir
thought, to be at one's post. Nor was he mistaken. Though it was only
ten o'clock, two men were awaiting his return, and, their business
despatched, de Casimir deemed it wise to send away his assistants.
Immediately after they had gone a woman came. She was half distracted
with fear, and the tears ran down her pallid cheeks. But she dried them
at the mention of de Casimir's price, and fell to abusing him.

"If your husband is innocent, there is all the more reason why he should
be grateful to me for warning him," he said, with a smile. And at last
the lady paid and went away.

The town clocks had struck eleven before another footstep on the
pavement made de Casimir raise his head. He did not actually expect any
one, but a certain surreptitiousness in the approach of this visitor,
and the low knock on the door, made him suspect that this was grist for
his mill.

He opened the door and, seeing that it was a woman, stepped back. When
she had entered, he closed the door while she stood watching him in the
dark passage, beneath the shadow of her hood. Knowing the value of such
small details, he locked the door rather ostentatiously and dropped the
key into his pocket.

"And now, madame," he said reassuringly, as he followed his visitor into
the room where a shaded lamp lighted his writing-table. She threw back
her hood, and it was Mathilde! The surprise on de Casimir's face was
genuine enough. Romance could not have brought about this visit, nor
love be its motive.

"Something has happened," he said, looking at her doubtfully.

"Where is my father?" was the reply.

"Unless there has bee