You will pardon me if I pass over the events of the next few days, and plunge directly into a scene which occurred one night, about a week later, the very night in fact on which the Bishops were to close their engagement with the little circus in which they were playing. It was in the sitting-room of the diplomat’s suite at the hotel that the scene took place; dinner _a deux_ was in progress—and the diplomat’s guest was Mlle. Bishop, who had indiscreetly accepted the Englishman’s invitation. Came a knock at the door. Mademoiselle grew pale. “My husband,” she exclaimed. Mademoiselle was right. It was her husband who entered—very cold, very businesslike, and carrying a riding crop in his hand. He glanced at the man and woman in the room. “I suspected something of the sort,” he said, in a quiet voice. “You are indiscreet, Madame. You do not conceal your infidelities with care.” He took a step toward her, put paused at an exclamation from the Englishman. “Do not fear, Monsieur—” elaborate irony was in his voice as he addressed the diplomat—“I shall not harm you. It is with this—lady—only, that I am concerned. She has, it appears, an inadequate conception of her wifely duty. I must, therefore, give her a lesson.” As he spoke he tapped his boot suggestively with his riding whip. “My only regret,” he continued politely, “is that I must detain you as a witness of a painful scene, and possibly cause a disturbance in your room.” Again he turned toward his wife, who had sat watching him, with a terrified face. Now as he approached her she burst into tears, and ran to where the Englishman stood. “He is going to beat me,” she sobbed. “Help me, for Heaven’s sake. Stop him. Give him—give him anything.” But the Englishman did not need to be coached. “Look here!” he cried suddenly, interposing himself between the husband and wife. “I’ll give you fifty pounds to get out of here quietly. Good God, man, you can’t do a thing like this, you know. It’s horrible. And you have no cause. I give you my word you have no cause.” He was a pitiable mixture of shame and apprehension as he spoke. But Merrill looked at him calmly. He was quite unmoved and still polite when he replied: “The word of a gentleman, I suppose. No, Monsieur, it is useless to try to bribe me. It is a great mistake, in fact. Almost—” he paused for a moment, as if he found it difficult to continue—“almost it makes me angry.” He was silent for a space, but when he spoke again it was as if in response to an idea that had come to him. “Yes,” he continued. “It does make me angry. Nevertheless, Monsieur, I shall accept your suggestion. Madame and I will leave quietly, and in return you shall give us—O, not money—but something that you value very much.” He turned to his wife. “Madame. You will go to Monsieur’s trunk, which is open in the corner, and remove every article so that I can see it.”