“During this last night an acquaintance known to both of us, Edgar von Hull, has been murdered. His friend Karstens is severely wounded, and I only escaped because I had happened to leave, two hours earlier, the locality into which we had been enticed. I believe I know the instigator of this crime. It is once more the sandy-bearded man and the old Professor. Its actual perpetrators have escaped, but we have made one arrest, of a person who is also known to you. I mean Cara Carozza, the dancer, whose liaison with Hull you are aware of. At present I have hardly more than a profound conviction that she has had some share in the crime, but I have thought of a way by which we might loosen her tongue. If you, Countess, would undertake the unpleasant enterprise of allowing yourself to be arrested, I would take care to arrange for your being put into the same cell as Carozza. She does not know you as Countess Told, but as a lady who frequents her own circles. Represent your offence as a very trifling one, and say that you will soon be set free, even if you are found guilty of taking part in an illicit game.... Promise to help her, perhaps by flight ... and you must previously have informed her that her situation is a very serious one, and one never can tell what may happen to persons arrested in such circumstances as hers.... She will then probably tell you who would be able to arrange for her escape, and you understand the rest, Countess. Are you willing to play the part?” “I will carry out your wishes,” said the Countess, without stopping an instant for reflection, and her voice sounded eager. Wenk was sensibly touched by the haste, the ready zeal with which this gracious and beautiful woman accepted his suggestion. “Up to now,” she said lightly, “there has never been a chance for me to do anything really useful, to engage in a bold enterprise with life at stake, to study life at first hand.” “And that is what you have been seeking in the gambling-dens?” he asked. “I do not rightly know. I felt at home in those places, because there seemed to be no barriers. In my own circle I could perceive the horizon everywhere, and I could not endure that. I feel I owe you much....” There was a smarting in Wenk’s eyes. He was overcome with a sensation of longing; it took possession of him and tormented him, and he asked, almost roughly, “And your husband?” She answered calmly, “In every marriage, although you cannot know it by experience, there is something of what the heart has sought left unfulfilled. I rob my husband of nothing, if I try to find what I am seeking without him.” “I honour and esteem you,” cried Wenk, his voice trembling slightly. “It is nothing but the natural law,” she countered; “and now tell me what I am to do.” “On a certain day, which you shall appoint, I will take you in my car to the governor of the prison and we will arrange everything with him. When would it suit you?” “Next Saturday at this time.” She rose.