Strange though it may seem, Geoffrey Engleheart was one of but two persons in England who had on that Saturday anticipated this sudden Declaration of War. Through the hot night, without heed of the wild turbulence outside, regardless of the songs of patriots, of gleeful shouts of Anarchists, that, mingling into a dull roar, penetrated the heavy curtains before the window of his room, he sat with brows knit and gaze transfixed. Words now and then escaped his compressed lips. They were low and ominous; utterances of blank despair. CHAPTER IV. THE SPY. Count von Beilstein was a polished cosmopolitan. He was in many ways a very remarkable man. In London society he was as popular as he had previously been in Paris and in Berlin. Well-preserved and military-looking, he retained the vigour, high spirits, and spruce step of youth, spent his money freely, and led the almost idyllic life of a careless bachelor in the Albany. Since his partnership with Sir Joseph Vayne, the well-known shipowner, father of Geoffrey's _fiancée_, he had taken up a prominent position in commercial circles, was a member of the London Chamber of Commerce, took an active part in the various deliberations of that body, and in the City was considered a man of considerable importance. How we of the world, however shrewd, are deceived by outward appearances! Of the millions in London there were but two men who knew the truth; who were aware of the actual position held by this German landed proprietor. Indeed, the Count's friends little dreamed that under the outward cloak of careless ease induced by wealth there was a mind endowed with a cunning that was extraordinary, and an ingenuity that was marvellous. Truth to tell, Karl von Beilstein, who posed as the owner of the great Beilstein estates, extending along the beautiful valley of the Moselle, between Alf and Cochem, was not an aristocrat at all, and possessed no estate more tangible than the proverbial château in Spain. [Illustration: "COUNT VON BEILSTEIN WAS A SPY!"] Count von Beilstein was a _spy_!