She was dazed and half fainting from the pain of her injuries, and he supported her to a divan at the further end of the apartment. “Do you realize what you have done?” he repeated. But despite the pain, despite the fact that she felt her senses were leaving her, the thought of Mortimer’s safety was still uppermost in her mind. “The signal--the signal,” she moaned hysterically, “was the signal given in time? Is he safe? Oh, tell me that he is safe! See--see!” A shriek broke from her. She sat staring straight before her as one seized with a paralysis of fear. Lord Ashley perceived the look; there was no mistaking its mingled horror and fascinated fear. Abruptly he turned to ascertain its cause. There within a few feet of him, with pallid features so distorted with rage as to be scarcely human, tall and majestic, the very embodiment of fury, his eyes ablaze with the sullen fires of vengeance, stood Captain Stanley Mortimer. A situation releasing him from his promise--the question of life or death which alone permitted him to cross the threshold of that room--had arisen. He now stood freed from his pledge. For a moment the two men faced each other, glaring into each other’s eyes. Then the torrent of wrath surging within Mortimer found an outlet in words. “Scoundrel! Liar!” he hissed between his set teeth. “What!” cried Lord Ashley, his anger kindling, as fire kindles amid straw. “You dare to apply those epithets to me--the King’s Chancellor!” “It is as man to man that we now speak,” retorted Mortimer, struggling with his rage. “Take your sword and defend your life!” He pointed across the apartment and through the open doorway of Lord Ashley’s private bureau. Against the wall, amid a panoply of arms, could be seen hanging the sword which the Chancellor had used during the earlier days of the Russian war. “I refuse to fight you,” said Lord Ashley. “I shall summon the guard and have you returned to the confinement from which you have escaped. Before you can claim the right to cross swords as an equal, you must first clear yourself of the stigma of treason which at present defiles you!” “You refuse!” retorted Mortimer, with a gesture of contempt. “Your refusal will avail you little. I will throttle you to death where you stand. What!” he continued, with biting sarcasm, “can it be possible that the uniform of the Guards has at one time covered the breast of a liar, a traducer and a--_coward_!”