Last July I again found myself in Spain. Another serious crisis had occurred. The Carlists were known to be carrying on an active propaganda, and I had been despatched to Madrid, so as to be on the spot if serious trouble arose. Only one London newspaper keeps a resident correspondent in the Spanish capital, the remainder of the news from that city being supplied through a well-known agency. A few days after my arrival at the Hotel de Rome, in the Caballero de Gracia, I called upon Senor Navarro Reverter, Minister of Finance, and was granted an interview. I desired to ascertain his views on the situation, and as he had been very communicative during those stormy times at San Sebastian a year before, I had no doubt that he would give me a few opinions worth telegraphing. As I entered his cosy private room in the Calle de Alcala, and he rose to greet me, my gaze became fixed upon the mantelshelf behind him, for upon it stood two cabinet photographs of a man and a woman. The one was a counterfeit presentment of Luis d'Avendano; the other a portrait of Doroteita! When I had formally "interviewed" him upon the financial reforms and other matters regarding which I desired his opinion, I asked to be allowed to see the photographs, and he handed them to me with a smile. "Doroteita d'Avendano!" I ejaculated. The features were unmistakable, though the dress was different. "Are they--er--friends of yours?" the Minister asked, regarding me keenly from beneath his shaggy brows. "They were--once," I answered. "Ever since we were at San Sebastian last year I have been endeavouring to trace them." "What? Did she add you to her list of victims?" he asked, laughing. "Well, the plot was scarcely successful, otherwise I should not be here now," I replied. Then I told him briefly how, after luring me to their villa, the interesting pair had attempted to murder me. "Extraordinary!" he ejaculated, when I had finished. "Curiously enough, however, your story supplies just the link in the chain of evidence that was missing at their trial." "Their trial?" I exclaimed. "Tell me about them." "Well, in the first place, the enchantress you knew as Doroteita d'Avendano was none other than the notorious Liseta Gonzalez, known to the police as `The Golden Hand.'" "`The Golden Hand'?" I echoed in amazement. I had heard much of the extraordinary career of an adventuress bearing that _sobriquet_; how she had moved in the best society in Paris and Vienna, and how in the latter city, in a single year, in her character as queen of the _demi-monde_, she had spent 50,000 pounds, the money of her dupes. Indeed, her adventures had been the talk of Europe.