"He just looked at me while it was dark. And he said a few conventional things. He was like his pictures, only he looks very bored and tired. He didn't even ask my name." "Is he leaving New York to-night?" "In half an hour. He and his aides have a car outside, and they expect to be over the border before dawn." "Did you find him--fascinating?" She hesitated and then slowly nodded her head. "That's what everybody says," admitted John glumly. "Do they expect you back there?" "I don't know." She looked uncertainly across the floor but the celebrated personage had again withdrawn from his table to some retreat outside. As she turned back an utterly strange young man who had been standing for a moment in the main entrance came toward them hurriedly. He was a deathly pale person in a dishevelled and inappropriate business suit, and he had laid a trembling hand on John Chestnut's shoulder. "Monte!" exclaimed John, starting up so suddenly that he upset his champagne. "What is it? What's the matter?" "They've picked up the trail!" said the young man in a shaken whisper. He looked around. "I've got to speak to you alone." John Chestnut jumped to his feet, and Rags noticed that his face too had become white as the napkin in his hand. He excused himself and they retreated to an unoccupied table a few feet away. Rags watched them curiously for a moment, then she resumed her scrutiny of the table across the floor. Would she be asked to come back? The prince had simply risen and bowed and gone outside. Perhaps she should have waited until he returned, but though she was still tense with excitement she had, to some extent, become Rags Martin-Jones again. Her curiosity was satisfied--any new urge must come from him. She wondered if she had really felt an intrinsic charm--she wondered especially if he had in any marked way responded to her beauty. The pale person called Monte disappeared and John returned to the table. Rags was startled to find that a tremendous change had come over him. He lurched into his chair like a drunken man. "John! What's the matter?" Instead of answering, he reached for the champagne bottle, but his fingers were trembling so that the splattered wine made a wet yellow ring around his glass. "Are you sick?" "Rags," he said unsteadily, "I'm all through." "What do you mean?" "I'm all through, I tell you." He managed a sickly smile. "There's been a warrant out for me for over an hour." "What have you done?" she demanded in a frightened voice. "What's the warrant for?" The lights went out for the next number, and he collapsed suddenly over the table. "What is it?" she insisted, with rising apprehension. She leaned forward--his answer was barely audible. "Murder?" She could feel her body grow cold as ice. He nodded. She took hold of both arms and tried to shake him upright, as one shakes a coat into place. His eyes were rolling in his head. "Is it true? Have they got proof?" Again he nodded drunkenly.