“Yes, but my life is now in danger. You do not understand what it is you have done. You did what you deemed best, of course; but you do not understand. They are hunting the city for us all now.” “These people have merely told you that to frighten you. No one has been even to your house.” “Oh, how little you understand. They are waiting because it is known that I have left there. The instant I leave here I shall be arrested.” “Then how could you escape this afternoon?” “Inez and Dr. Barosa have arranged that. We shall go in disguise, of course.” “Who told you that the plot had been discovered?” “Do you think they do not know that? M. Dagara sent them warning last night, and told them the names of those who are to be arrested.” “Everything you tell me only confirms what I say to you--that these lies have been coined in order to frighten you. M. Dagara is not in Lisbon. He left yesterday evening. I gave him money to take him and his wife to Paris. He did not even know that the abduction had been planned; and he left the city before he could hear of its failure.” She shook her head. “I know you think that--but I have the list of names.” “Will you show it me?” She took it out of the bosom of her dress and handed it me. “The trick is obvious,” I said with a smile. “It is not his handwriting.” “Inez made a copy for me.” “But did not show you the original. It is a lie--the whole thing. Do try to understand it all by the light of what I tell you. Why, here on the very face of it is a proof of its falsehood. Your mother’s name is mentioned.” “Do you think I have not seen it?” she cried, intensely moved. “Yes, but I have come straight from her to you. If she had been listed for arrest, should I have found her at home?” “She is left at liberty because they expect me to return to her, when we should both be arrested. That is why I have not gone home.” “But surely you can see that that is inconsistent with the other thing they told you--that you would be taken the moment you left this house? They have put your mother’s name on this concocted list in order to frighten you, and vamped this utterly false explanation. If the police are watching your home, you can safely leave here; if, on the other hand, they know how to find you without your going home, why is not your mother already arrested?” This made some impression. “I do not know what to think,” she murmured. “There is another thing. If you are to run into danger the instant you leave here, it means that the police know where you are. Do you suppose that, in such a case, they would not have raided this house?” “Inez is not on the list.” “Another proof that the whole thing is a fabrication. If the police had such intimate knowledge of the plot that they knew of your slight connexion with it, would they not know of the leaders?” She considered a moment. “But you yourself knew that the visconte and all of us were suspected. You told him.”