He stooped and raised her cold hand to his lips. Jeanne looked at him with the fascinated despair of some stricken animal. The Princess rose to her feet. It was wonderful, this--a triumph beyond all thought. "Jeanne, my child," she said, "you are the most fortunate girl I know, to have inspired a devotion so great. Count," she added, "you are wonderful. You deserve all the happiness which I am sure will come to you." The Count looked as though he were perfectly convinced of it. All the same he whispered in her ear a moment later-- "You must pay me back that three thousand pounds!" CHAPTER XIX For the Princess it was a day full of excitements. The Count had only just reluctantly withdrawn, and Jeanne had gone to her room under the plea of fatigue, when Forrest was shown in. She started at the look in his drawn face. "Nigel," she exclaimed hastily, "is everything all right?" He threw himself into a chair. "Everything," he answered, "is all wrong. Everything is over." The Princess saw then that he had aged during the last few days, that this man whose care of himself had kept him comparatively youthful looking, notwithstanding the daily routine of an unwholesome life, was showing signs at last of breaking down. There were lines about his eyes, little baggy places underneath. He dragged his feet across the carpet as though he were tired. The Princess pushed up an easy-chair and went herself to the sideboard. "Give me a little brandy," he said, "or rather a good deal of brandy. I need it." The Princess felt her own hand shake. She brought him a tumbler and sat down by his side. "You had to kill him?" she asked, in a whisper. "Is it that?" Forrest set down his glass--empty. "No!" he answered. "We were going to, when a mad woman who lives there got into the place and found us out. We had them safe, the two of them, when the worst thing happened which could have befallen us. Andrew de la Borne broke in upon us." The Princess listened with set face. "Go on," she said. "What happened?" "The game was up so far as we were concerned," he answered. "Cecil crumpled up before his brother, and gave the whole show away. There was nothing left for me to do but to wait and hear what they had to say, before I decided whether or no to make my graceful exit from the stage." "Go on," she commanded. "What happened exactly?" "We were kept there," he continued, "until this morning, waiting until Engleton was well enough to make up his mind what to do. The end is simple enough. Considering that but for that girl's intervention Engleton would have been in the sea by now, and he knows it, I suppose it might have been worse. I have signed a paper undertaking to leave England within forty-eight hours, and never to show myself in this country again. Further, I am not to play cards at any time with any Englishman." "Is that all?" the Princess asked.