“Would she?” asked Cyril. “My dear Usk, do you think my enemies would not have been able to arrange things so as to give her greater pain still? As it happened, Prince Pelenko was able to do his part without departing from the apparent truth, but do you think he would have objected to go a little beyond it if necessary? Would it have been much consolation to my wife to learn that I had shot myself, whether accidentally or otherwise, when in Mlle. Garanine’s company? You may say that it would have been no worse than to hear that I was in her company living, but you must remember that I fully expected to be able to escape with Paschics in two or three days at most. If I had thought I should be a prisoner for more than three months!--well, I may tell you that many and many a time I have wished I had called out as you suggest, and taken the consequences.” “I think I hear them moving upstairs,” interrupted Usk, and he went to the door and listened, but came back almost immediately, sitting down at the table with the same gloomy face. “Go ahead, Count!” said Mr Hicks. “I want to know right now what happened.” “Nothing happened for some time, except that Mlle. Garanine threw out hints which were evidently intended to make me believe that I was merely wanted out of the way for a day or two while a revolution was carried through in Thracia. It was an ingenious idea, for, of course, with Michael out of the kingdom, and most of the Ministers away at his wedding, the time would have been well chosen, but I knew I must have had some inkling of it if things had gone so far, and I was prepared to believe anything rather than what she told me. I felt pretty certain that it was the affairs of Palestine, and not of Thracia, which were concerned, and that I was wanted out of the way for a good deal longer than a day or two. I saw several ways in which they might try to manage it, but I reserved my judgment until we stopped at that accursed house down there----” he waved his hand towards the hill at the back of the inn. “If you knew what it has been to be certain that there were friends and safety within a mile of me, and yet to be unable to take a step towards them----! I should like to tear that house down stone by stone, and make it a desolation for ever----” “And bury Dr Gregorescu and his Dardanians under the ruins?” asked Mr Hicks. “No,” said Cyril calmly. “That would be too good for them. That man has made me twenty years older in these three months. I saw the whole plot as soon as I was face to face with him and heard his name, and it was the very worst of the alternatives I had imagined. You will wonder how I knew. Well, I don’t think I am a coward generally. Hicks, you and I have been in some tight places together; what do you say?” “No man less so, Count.”