"I would," she declared despairingly. "What followed was a dark, mysterious tragedy, while all the time I knew that you must suspect-- that, after all, you might forsake me. Within a week after binding myself irrevocably to the Tzar's army of spies I made a discovery that held me appalled. I found that my master, the man to whose will I was compelled to submit, was none other than our discharged _valet de chambre_--the man who two years before had declared his love. At the time my mother had engaged him he was already in the Secret Service, and had no doubt kept watch upon us. He came to me at `The Nook,' and, exulting in the fact that I had become his puppet, renewed his protestations of affection. When, frankly, I told him that I hated him and loved only you, he at once informed me, with a grin of satisfaction, that the department in St Petersburg found it compulsory to obtain possession of a copy of a secret convention at that moment being concluded between your country and Germany, and that I must get possession of it at any cost, through you. It was in order that I might betray you that the Imperial permission had been given to our marriage. In indignation I refused, whereupon he threatened to expose me to you as a Russian spy, and I saw only too clearly that any such revelation must end for ever our acquaintance. He cajoled, urged, threatened, and explained all the elaborate precautions that had been taken by two clerks in Russian pay at your Foreign Office in order that on a certain day you should carry the precious document in your pocket, and how he had prepared the dummy envelope sealed with your Minister's seal. At last--at last, after striving long and vainly against the performance of this ignominious action that I knew must reflect on your honesty, I was compelled to submit. Ah! you can never know what agony I suffered. I verily believe that in those few days the terrible vengeance of that scoundrel drove me insane. The hideous ghost of the past causes me to shudder whenever I think of it." I echoed her sigh, but no word escaped me. Her revelations were astounding. I had never suspected her of being actually a spy, although the discovery of the stolen convention in her escritoire had lent colour to that view.