"You see, my dear Wetheral, we, who have supposed ourselves to be conspirators, are the ones who have really been conspired against. All was perfectly arranged. Even the choice of officers by lot was so managed by Mesmer, who conducted the drawing, that you and St. Valier were designated." "The base-hearted Landgrave would remove both her protectors! But what proof will there be against us, beyond Mesmer's testimony? And will not Mesmer's testimony betray the Landgrave's whole design?" "Mesmer will give no testimony. They have proof sufficient, of the kind they desire. This very afternoon they found the signed compact in your room; they knew from Mesmer exactly where it was hidden. Mesmer will not even appear among the accused. It was part of the plan that he should be allowed to escape, and to stay out of the country till the others were disposed of. To that escape and absence, the rest of us would attribute his not being punished with us,--and not to his having sold us to the Landgrave. Thus the world was to be kept from knowing the despicable part this wretch had played. And now mark how little these villains trust one another. Fearful, I suppose, lest the Landgrave would after all let him suffer, in order to make sure of his silence, Mesmer stipulated that he should be allowed to escape at the moment of arrest. Mesmer once inside a prison, he doubtless thought, the Landgrave might consider a dungeon--or a grave--the safest place for a man who possessed the secret of so detestable a transaction. And, to keep his treachery the more hidden, he provided that the arrest and his apparent escape should be entrusted to an officer not acquainted with him." "But how then could the officer know which man was to escape?" "Mesmer was to be distinguished by a cloak of a particular color," said Romberg. "The devil!" cried Dick, smiling despite all circumstances. "And the cloak happened to be on me at the time of the escape." "Listen!" said Romberg, abruptly. "Some one is coming." The sounds of an approach were indeed heard from the side towards the depths of the forest. The two gentlemen rose, and grasped their swords. A moment later a man stepped into view, whom they both recognized by sight. He was a French valet of the Landgrave's. "Pardon, messieurs!" he exclaimed, after a start of fright at so suddenly coming upon the two threatening-looking gentlemen. "I have come here merely to look for a riding-whip dropped by Mademoiselle de St. Valier a short time ago." And he stepped into the tower, where he began to search with his feet the paving, which was in comparative darkness. For a moment Dick's heart was stilled. The blood left his cheeks; power left his voice. He followed the valet in. "Do you mean to say that Mademoiselle de St. Valier was here in this tower a short while ago?" he asked, in a forced voice, when he could speak at all. He remembered the cloaked lady riding from the copse with the Landgrave.