He made a slow progress, for the crowd grew thicker in the vicinity of the Casa del Cordon, where the loyal country-folk waited patiently for a glimpse of their young king. The stranger stood for a little while looking up at the expressionless windows of the Casa, innocent of curtain, but strangely clean. He speculated on the value of life--of royal life. "If I were to kill the king," he mused, "Europe would dissolve into one big shudder. If, being dead, I came forward offering to restore him to life for fifty million francs the money would be instantly forthcoming on the proof of my ability. Yet were I to go now to the king's minister saying--'It is easy for me to kill the king, but if you will give me the money you would spend on his obsequies, I will stay my hand,' I should be kicked out, arrested, and possibly confined as a lunatic." He nodded his head slowly, and as he turned away he took a little note-book from his pocket, and inscribed--"The greatest of miracles is self-restraint." Then he rolled a cigarette and walked slowly back to the Café Suizo in the Espolon. A clean-shaven priest, with a thin, intellectual face, was stirring his coffee at one of the tables, and since this was the least occupied the stranger made for it. He raised his hat to the priest and sat down. "I apologise for intruding myself, father," he said, "but the other tables----" The priest smiled and raised a protesting hand. "The table is at your disposition, my son," he said. He was about the same age as the stranger, but he spoke with the assurance of years. His voice was modulated, his accent refined, his presence that of a gentleman. "A Jesuit," thought the stranger, and regarded him with politely veiled curiosity. Jesuits had a fascination for him. They were clever, and they were good; but principally they were a mysterious force that rode triumphant over the prejudice of the world and the hatred in the Church. "If I were not an adventurer," he said aloud, and with an air of simplicity, "I should be a Jesuit." The priest smiled again, looking at him with calm interest. "My son," he said, "if I were not a Jesuit priest, I should be suspicious of your well-simulated frankness." Here would have come a deadlock to a man of lesser parts than the stranger, but he was a very adaptable man. None the less, he was surprised into a laugh which showed his white teeth. "In Spain," he said, "no gambit to conversation is known. I might have spoken of the weather, of the crowd, of the king--I chose to voice my faults." The priest shook his head, still smiling. "It is of no importance," he said quietly; "you are a Russian, of course?" The stranger stared at him blankly. These Jesuits--strange stories had been told about them. A body with a secret organisation, spread over the world--it had been said that they were hand-in-hand with the police----