toner had gone. It
was evident that it could only have been an accident. Cartoner could
not have known. To do a thing like that, he must have known all--or
nothing."

"He could not have known all," said the prince. "That is an
impossibility."

"Then he must have known nothing," put in Wanda, with a laugh, which at
one stroke robbed the matter of much of its importance.

"I do not know how much he perceived when he was in--as to his own
danger, I mean--for he has an excellent nerve, and was steady; steadier
than I was. But he knows that there was something wrong," said Martin,
wiping the dust from his face with his pocket-handkerchief. His hand
shook a little, as if he had ridden hard, or had been badly frightened.
"We had a bad half-hour after he left, especially with Kosmaroff. The
man is only half-tamed, that is the truth of it."

"That is more to his own danger than to any one else's," put in Wanda,
again. She spoke lightly, and seemed quite determined to make as little
of the incident as possible.

"Then how do matters stand?" inquired the prince.

"It comes to this," answered Martin, "that Poland is not big enough to
hold both Kosmaroff and Cartoner. Cartoner must go. He must be told to
go, or else----"

Wanda had taken up her work again. As she looked at it attentively, the
color slowly faded from her face.

"Or else--what?" she inquired.

Martin shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, Kosmaroff is not a man to stick at trifles."

"You mean," said Wanda, who would have things plainly, "that he would
assassinate him?"

Wanda glanced at her father. She knew that men hard pressed are no
sticklers. She knew the story of the last insurrection, and of the
wholesale assassination, abetted and encouraged by the anonymous
national government of which the members remain to this day unknown. The
prince made an indifferent gesture of the hand.

"We cannot go into those small matters. We are playing a bigger game
that that. It has always been agreed that no individual life must be
allowed to stand in the way of success."

"It is upon that principle that Kosmaroff argues," said Martin,
uneasily.

"Precisely; and as I was not present when this happened--as it is,
moreover, not my department--I cannot, personally, act in the matter."

"Kosmaroff will obey nobody else."

"Then warn Cartoner," the prince said, in a final voice. His had always
been the final word. He would say to one, go; and to another, come.

"I c