"Yes, I will. I will, Geoffrey! Soon I shall be freed from this terrible yoke that crushes me beneath its burden," she exclaimed eagerly. "Be patient, and ere long we may again live together and enjoy our happiness to the full. You still doubt that I really love you. You believe that my marriage was a mere freak, of which I afterwards repented, and then strove to hide my identity. What can I do?" she cried, dismayed. "What can I do to give you proof that I love no other man?" "One very small action," I answered gravely, still holding her slight, trembling form in my arms. "What is it?" she inquired quickly, glancing up into my face. "I am ready to do it, whatever it is." For a moment I paused in hesitation. "Answer me a single question, Ella," I said. "Remember you are my wife, and should have no secrets from me. Tell me, truthfully and honestly, how there came into your possession the secret document that was stolen from me on the day of Dudley's death." The colour left her face, her lips moved, and a slight shiver ran over her shoulders as she gazed at me. Never before had her eyes seemed so large, nor had there been such depths in them. Some subtle influence seemed in an instant to have transfigured her whole being. CHAPTER TWENTY NINE. THE SEAL OF SILENCE. "No, you must not ask me, for I cannot tell you," she faltered, after I had gravely repeated my earnest inquiry. She shrank from my embrace, and as she stood before me, her handsome head was bent in an attitude of utter dejection. "Ah, the same lame story?" I cried impatiently. "You refuse." She raised her sad eyes. I saw in their clear depths a yearning for pity. "I dare not tell you yet, Geoffrey," she whispered, in a strained, terrified voice. "You know well how much keen anxiety the loss of that document caused me," I said. "Why did you not tell me that it was in your keeping?" "It was not in my keeping," she protested. "I recovered it only a few days before we parted." "But you knew something of its whereabouts?" I argued. "I was not certain," she vaguely replied, her slim fingers picking at the bands of pearl passementerie across the flimsy chiffon of her bodice. With an expression of disbelief I turned from her. "Ah, Geoffrey," she cried wildly, "I am fully conscious of what your thoughts must be. Now that you have discovered my true position, that I am a Russian, you believe I had a hand in the theft of the Anglo-German Convention; that by my machinations its text was transmitted to St Petersburg--eh?" No answer passed my lips, but I think I bowed my head in confirmation of her fevered words.