"I can discover but little concerning her," Harry replied. "She is not known at all. She has apparently only gone to live with her aunt at Segovia since the count's death." "I wonder what was in the papers which so affected the lady?" I remarked. "De Gex evidently invited them to dinner in order to make some disclosure, and to prove it by the production of documents." "Evidently," replied my companion. "In any case, the countess and her niece have just started to return for home, the widow being very upset at what has been revealed to her to-night." "What can it have been, I wonder? Could not the waiter ascertain the nature of the disclosure?" "No. I saw him myself afterwards, and he explained that the documents in question were produced just after he had left the room. He heard the countess utter a cry of dismay, and when he again entered the room in pretence of clearing away the coffee-cups, he found the lady in tears, while her niece declared hotly in French: 'I do not believe it! I will never believe it!' A number of legal documents were spread out upon the table, and De Gex was holding one of them in his hand." "Then the object of the visit of the precious pair seems to have been to disclose some hitherto well-guarded secret to the widow of the Spanish financier--eh?" "Yes," my friend agreed. "It certainly seems so," and then he rose and left. Downstairs in the palm court the gay crowd was pouring through to the restaurant for supper after the theatre, for smart Madrid is gay at night, and there is as much dancing and fun there, on a smaller scale of course, as there is in the West End. The pretty dresses, the laughter, the sibilant whispers, and the claw-hammer coat are the same in Madrid and Bucharest as in London or Paris, or any other capital. The hour of midnight is the same hour of relaxation when even judges smile after their day upon the bench, and the blue-stocking will laugh at a risky story. So after Harry had gone, refusing to have supper with me lest somebody should notice us together, I strolled about, and selecting a table in the corner, ate my solitary meal, having had no dinner that day. It was past midnight before I ascended in the lift to my room. I undressed and when in bed I read the _Heraldo_ until I suppose I dropped off to sleep. I knew nothing until later I was awakened by some slight movement. In an instant I was seized by a strange intuition of danger, and my wits became acute. Next second I was on the alert. There had been three lights burning when I retired, now there was but one. I had bolted my door, yet it was now slightly ajar! I lay and listened. Outside I heard the hum of a car receding across the great square. Afterwards a church bell began to clang discordantly, as they all do in Spain. The light was over the dressing-table in the corner, and so shaded that the room was quite dim.