I bent forward until my eyes rested upon the speaker, who, lounging near, was engaged in serious confidential conversation with Keppel and my travelling-companion, as though they were old friends. In an instant I drew back and held my breath. Was this the man who had suggested the blowing up of the Vispera? Surely not. Perhaps, however, he had actually travelled with us from Pisa in another carriage, or perhaps he had joined the train at some intermediate station. But by whatever means he had come there, the fact of his identity remained the same. It was Ernest Cameron, the man I loved. CHAPTER XVII CONFIDES THE STORY OF A TABLE The discovery of Ernest’s presence in the car was an entirely fresh development of the mystery. I had been ignorant of his acquaintance with Keppel, but that they were really close friends was evident by the rapid, rather apprehensive manner in which they were conversing. I tried, and tried again, to overhear some of the words spoken, but in vain. Therefore I was compelled to remain in wonderment until the conclusion of that long, terribly tiring journey half way across Europe. Arrived at the Gare de Lyon in Paris, I entered a fiacre and followed them across the city to the Hotel Terminus, that big caravansary outside the Gare St. Lazare, where they engaged four rooms on the first floor--a sitting-room and three bedrooms. Having taken every precaution to prevent being detected by either of them, I ascertained that the number of the sitting-room was 206, therefore I engaged 205, the room adjoining, and ordered a light déjeûner to be taken there. I was faint, nervous, and tired after being cramped up for thirty hours, and was resting on the couch, when suddenly voices sounding in the next room caused me to spring up on the alert in an instant. Keppel and Ernest were speaking together. “It’s a risk, of course,” the millionaire was saying in a low voice--“a great risk.” “But we’ve run greater in this affair,” the other responded. “You know how near to arrest I have been.” I held my breath. Arrest! What could he mean? “It was fortunate that you escaped as you did.” “Thanks to you. Had you not concealed me on the Vispera and taken me on that cruise I should now be in the hands of the police.” “But they seem to possess no clue,” Keppel observed. “Fortunately for us, they do not,” answered the man to whom I had given my heart. And he laughed lightly, as though perfectly confident in his own safety. “It was that transfer of the notes at the Carnival ball that puzzled them.” They were speaking of poor Reggie’s murder! I held my ear close to the dividing door, striving to catch every word. I was learning their secret! The two men whom I had least suspected were actually implicated in that dastardly crime. But what, I wondered, could have been their motive in taking the poor boy’s life? Certainly robbery was not the incentive, for to the old Pittsburg inventor sixty thousand francs was but a paltry sum.