A moment more she hesitated—searching his face with big, anxious eyes. Then dawned the light of a great resolution; and I knew that she had determined to trust to her instincts. “Here,” she said, hastily pulling a ring from her finger. “Show this to the woman in the shop before the Café de l’Orient, Greek Street, and say ‘Warsaw.’ You will be admitted. Give the packet to Leo or to the President; to no one else! Quick! go, I implore you!” O’Hagan took the ring, raised the girl’s white fingers to his lips, and bowed over her hand as over the hand of a queen. It was the farewell of an old-time courtier and most perfect gentleman—completely untheatrical, exquisitely dignified. At such moments you perceive in my friend the ideal cavalier. Her face flushed rosily—and paled to a greater pallor. In the doorway O’Hagan turned again and bowed. Then, straight downstairs we hastened—he with the package in an inside pocket—and through to the street, unquestioned. A taxi-cab had just discharged a visitor at the door, and O’Hagan detained the man with a short, imperious gesture. We leapt in. “Café de l’Orient, Greek Street,” said my friend. “Three-and-nine if you get there in five minutes!” ————— IV. THE CONSPIRATORS. The cab having moved on,— “I regret,” began O’Hagan, “that we have missed our supper! But I have triumphantly proven my words anent the survival of Romance. You note into what a surprising adventure we have blundered merely by honouring a Grand Duke with our company! Here we have all the elements of a stirring romance indeed: the autocratic nobleman, the distressed lovers, the ring as a token! I am delighted, Raymond!” “O’Hagan!” I interrupted sternly—“if _you_ are delighted, I am appalled! Of the deception practised upon the Duke I will say nothing; but to have tricked a girl who confided——” “Stop!” cried O’Hagan imperiously. “Stop there, Raymond! You!—my friend—and charge me with such a crime! Raymond!——” “She thinks,” I interrupted, excitedly—— “She thinks,” my friend took me up, “that we are acquainted with her secrets, and trusts us accordingly. Good. Is her trust misplaced? Do we intend to betray her? No! ten thousand times no! It is perfectly evident that her lover—Christian name, Leo; surname, unknown; nationality, possibly Polish—is involved in some conspiracy directed against a government—probably that of Russia. Her father, or guardian, our mutual acquaintance the Duke, had obtained, through the treachery of one Casimir, proofs of Leo’s complicity. These, we may assume, he intended to employ—(a) to frustrate Leo’s designs in regard to the lady; (b) to bring about the arrest, or ruin, of the said Leo.