Alban shuddered at the words and took another step toward the bed. He felt giddy and faint. The words he had just heard were ringing in his ears as a sound of rushing waters. "Has Lois done this thing?"--incredible! And yet the man implied as much. "I cannot stay here," he exclaimed presently, "I must go to my room, if you please." He turned and reeled from the place, ashamed of his weakness, yet unable to control it. Outside upon the landing, he discovered that Zaniloff was at his elbow and had something to say to him. Speaking sharply and autocratically in the Russian tongue, that worthy realized almost immediately that he had failed to make himself understood and so called the Herr Director to his aid. "They will require your attendance at the bureau," the Director said with an obsequious bow toward Alban--"you must dress at once, sir, and accompany this gentleman." Alban said that he would do so. He was miserably cold and ill and trembling still. Knowing nothing of the truth, he believed that they were taking him to Lois Boriskoff and that she was already in custody. CHAPTER XXVI AN INTERLUDE IN PICCADILLY Alban had been fifteen days out of England when Anna Gessner met Willy Forrest one afternoon as she was driving a pair of chestnut ponies down Piccadilly towards the Circus. He, amiable creature, had just left a club and a bridge table which had been worth fifteen pounds to him. The gray frock suit he wore suited him admirably. He certainly looked very smart and wide-awake. "Anna, by Jupiter," he cried, as he stepped from the pavement at the very corner of Dover Street--"well, if my luck don't beat cock-fighting. Where are you off to, Anna--what have you done with the shoving-machine? I thought you never aired the gee-gees now. Something new for you, isn't it? May I get in and have a pawt? We shall be fined forty bob and costs at Marlborough Street if we hold up the traffic. Say, you look ripping in this char a bancs, upon my soul you're killing." She had not meant to stop for him, and half against her wish she now reined the ponies in and made room for him. There never had been a day in her life since she had known him when she was able to resist altogether the blandishments of this pleasant rogue, who made so many appeals to her interest. To-day sheer curiosity conquered her. She wished above all things to hear what he had done with the extravagant cheque her father had sent him. "I drove the ponies for a change," she said coldly, "we must not be unkind to dumb creatures. Do you know, it is most improper that you should be seen with me in this carriage, Willy. Just think what my father would say if he heard of it." Willy Forest, to give him his due, rarely devoted much time to unpleasant thoughts.