"What?" she gasped in alarm, "The secret is out?" "Yes," he answered gruffly. "Impossible!" "I tell you it's the truth," he answered. "I escaped over the frontier by the merest chance. Oustromoff's bloodhounds were at my heels. They followed me to Vienna, but there I managed to escape them and travel to Berlin. I knew that there was a warrant out for me--Roesch sent me word that orders had been issued by the Minister of Police--therefore I feared to cross to England by any of the mail routes. I knew the police would be on the look-out at Calais, Antwerp, Ostend, Folkestone, and Dieppe. Therefore I travelled to Copenhagen, thence by steamer to Gothenburg, and rail to Christiania. I arrived by the weekly mail steamer from there only an hour ago." "What a journey!" exclaimed the woman I had been watching so long and patiently. "Do you actually mean that you are unsafe--here, in England?" "Unsafe? Of course. The Ministry have telegraphed my description to all police centres, with a request for my extradition." "It is inconceivable," she cried, "just at the moment when all seemed safest, that this catastrophe should fall! What of Roesch, Blumhardt, and Schaefer?" "Schaefer was arrested in Sofia on the day I left. Blumhardt escaped to Varna, but was taken while embarking on board a cargo-boat for England. I tell you I had a narrow escape--a very narrow escape." "Then don't speak so loud," she urged. "Some one might be in the next room, you know." He rose and tried the door at which I stood. It was locked, and that apparently reassured him. "Whom do you think informed the Ministry of Police?" "Ah! at present no one knows," he responded. "What do you think they say?" "What?" "That some of your precious friends in London have exposed the whole thing." "My friends? Whom do you mean?" "You know best who are your friends," he replied, with sarcasm. "But no one is aware of the whole facts." "Are you absolutely certain?" "Absolutely." "And the loan for the Prince?" he said. "Have you raised it?" "No; the thing is too dangerous in these circumstances. I have made a full report. You received it, I suppose?" "No; I must have left Sofia before it arrived. Tell me." "That very useful fool named Heaton has suddenly gone out of his mind." "Insane?" "Yes," she responded. "At least, he seems so to me. I placed the matter before him, but he refused to have anything whatever to do with it. His standing in the City has been utterly shattered by all sorts of rumours regarding the worthlessness of certain of the concessions, and as far as we are concerned our hopes of successfully raising the loan have now disappeared into thin air." "What!" he cried. "Have you utterly failed?" "Yes," she answered. "Heaton assisted us while all was square, but now, just when we want a snug little sum for ourselves, he has suddenly become obstinate and refuses to raise a finger."