Neither Hagané's eyes nor voice faltered. "The man, Monsieur Le Beau, has a service to perform for Japan. He asks a certain price. Yuki alone can pay that price." "It is simple enough, Mr. Todd," Pierre burst in. The discussion went in a direction distasteful to him. He did not wish the matter of the paper, and its means of acquirement, laid bare. "I can do the prince a service. For it, Yuki becomes my own, as from the beginning she should have been. This little talisman merely rights the mistakes of Fortune." He held out the document, shaking it to attract attention. "The very paper I helped to sign, this day!" said Todd, wondering. "What, in the name of Beelzebub, are you doing with it? Hagané was to guard it with his life! There's something queer in this. I smell foul play! Did Yuki,--could Yuki have--?" He checked himself, reddening at the baseness of his quick suspicion. Yuki, facing him, gave no answering flush. She was white,--white beyond belief in a thing that lived at all. Her low voice gave each syllable full measure. "I was partly--to blame--that Monsieur Le Beau secured that paper. I shall pay his price." Todd's eyes still hung on her, fascinated, incredulous. He could not believe her capable of vileness. He knew that no depth of personal degradation could begin to compare, in the Japanese mind, with an offence against loyalty. It was to them, truly, the sin against the Holy Ghost. Yet, by her own words, Yuki was condemned. His stung thought flashed to Pierre, and fastened on him. "Then, man, it is a double wrong! I do not know yet how you got the thing; but if she is implicated, you owe it to her, far more than yourself, to be decent! In the name of morality,--of honor,--do not sell the thing; give it back without condition! Your proposition is damnable!" "His Excellency Mr. Todd was one who signed the paper; he pleads for its return," murmured Ronsard to the air. "Never mind that!" flashed Todd. "The paper doesn't trouble me a little bit! I am thinking of Yuki!" "But--Mr. Todd--Yuki, she wish to pay that price. She wish to be given--so--to Monsieur!" said the Princess Hagané. Pierre flashed a look of triumph into Todd's dazed eyes. Defiantly he went to Yuki, caught her hand, and kissed it. "You see and hear her for yourself!" vaunted Pierre. Todd appealed dumbly to Hagané for extrication from this amazing skein of tangled interests. Hagané brooded on his wife with tenderness,--with the ache of love,--as over a dying child. Yuki drew her hand from Pierre and went to the minister. "Don't try to understand," she urged him, piteously, "don't defend me! You cannot understand,--not even Gwendolen could understand!" She caught her breath sharply, with a new and untried pang, "Oh, Gwendolen, my dear one!" she moaned, "I had forgotten you. Gwendolen--Gwendolen!" "If I might be allowed to say a word in behalf of France," ventured Ronsard, hesitatingly.