"We cannot very well talk here," he said. "Suppose we go into the hotel and have late tea, Mlle. Dorian." "Yes. Very well. But please do not call me that. It is not my name." Stuart was on the point of saying, "Zara el-Khala then," but checked himself in the nick of time. He might hold communication with the enemy, but at least he would give away no information. "I am called Miska," she added. "Will you please call me Miska?" "Of course, if you wish," said Stuart, looking down at her as she walked by his side and wondering what he would do when he had to stand up in Court, look at Miska in the felon's dock and speak words which would help to condemn her--perhaps to death, at least to penal servitude! He shuddered. "Have I said something that displeases you?" she asked, resting a white-gloved hand on his arm. "I am sorry." "No, no," he assured her. "But I was thinking--I cannot help thinking ..." "How wicked I am?" she whispered. "How lovely you are!" he said hotly, "and how maddening it is to remember that you are an accomplice of criminals!" "Oh," she said, and removed her hand, but not before he had felt how it trembled. They were about to enter the tea-room when she added: "Please don't say that until I have told you why I do what I do." Obeying a sudden impulse, he took her hand and drew it close under his arm. "No," he said; "I won't. I was a brute, Miska. Miska means 'musk', surely?" "Yes." She glanced up at him timidly. "Do you think it a pretty name?" "Very," he said, laughing. Underlying the Western veneer was the fascinating naivete of the Eastern woman, and Miska had all the suave grace, too, which belongs to the women of the Orient, so that many admiring glances followed her charming figure as she crossed the room to a vacant table. "Now," said Stuart, when he had given an order to the waiter, "what do you want to tell me? Whatever it may be, I am all anxiety to hear it. I promise that I will only act upon anything you may tell me in the event of my life, or that of another, being palpably endangered by my silence." "Very well. I want to tell you," replied Miska, "why I stay with Fo-Hi." "Who is Fo-Hi?" "I do not know!" "What!" said Stuart. "I am afraid I don't understand you." "If I speak in French will you be able to follow what I say?" "Certainly. Are you more at ease with French?" "Yes," replied Miska, beginning to speak in the latter language. "My mother was French, you see, and although I can speak in English fairly well I cannot yet _think_ in English. Do you understand? "Perfectly. So perhaps you will now explain to whom you refer when you speak of Fo-Hi." Miska glanced apprehensively around her, bending further forward over the table. "Let me tell you from the beginning," she said in a low voice, "and then you will understand. It must not take me long. You see me as I am to-day because of a dreadful misfortune that befell me when I was fifteen years old."