“But I want to hear your story of the affair. Please stay.” “Do not think me rude, countess. But as Mr. Freeman says, we have some things to talk over. So good-night.” She saw the changeless determination beneath his apparent calm. There was nothing more that she could say. He knew what he was walking into, and any further warning to him would be but a warning to Freeman. “Good-night,” she breathed. And clinging to a chair-back, her face ghastly, she watched the two go out. “I have a sleigh waiting below,” said Freeman as they went down. “I wanted to be unobserved, so I left the driver behind. We can ride about and talk. Let’s go through the State Garden; there’ll be no danger of our being overheard there.” Drexel knew well why Freeman suggested that lonely park, sure to be deserted at this midnight hour. But he acquiesced, for it suited his own purpose no less than Freeman’s. They got into the little backless sleigh, Freeman took the reins in his left hand and slipped his ungloved right into his overcoat pocket. The horse was of that big, black, powerful breed the rich of Russia have developed for carriage service. At Freeman’s word he sprang away at a swift trot, and they sped along the broad Fontanka Canal, Drexel listening to a clever fabrication of Freeman’s escape. He kept the tail of his eye on Freeman’s pocketed right hand, for he knew what that hand clutched, and held himself in tense readiness for that hand’s first swift, hostile move. They entered the park--broad, white, with the hush of midnight brooding upon it. Drexel’s eye never left that right hand, which he knew would now dart out at any moment. He preferred to choose the moment himself. He slipped an arm behind Freeman’s back as if to support himself. “Freeman,” he said in the same quiet tone in which he had thus far spoken, “there is one thing that I know which I have not yet told you.” “What is that?” His voice rang out with sudden fierceness. “That you are the traitor who sold us out!” Instantly he pinned Freeman’s arms to his sides in a tight embrace, rendering helpless, as he thought, that pistol hand. “And now you are going to pay for it!” Freeman must have been startled, but he was not the man to lose a second. He dropped the reins, twisted his body like a snake in the powerful grip that held him, bringing his right side toward Drexel. “Am I?” he cried with a sardonic laugh. And without trying to draw out his hand, he fired through the pocket. The bullet missed, but at the shot the big black snorted and sprang away at a frenzied gallop. Drexel gave Freeman no chance for a second shot. He loosed his embrace and seized Freeman’s right wrist. The pistol came out and instantly the four hands were struggling over it--Freeman’s to aim it for but a moment, Drexel’s to wrench it free.