"Is it the head of the plot who is addressing me?" inquired the duchess, icily. "No doubt my nephew has already told you--" The Prince stopped her. "The Viscount Cranford answers to me," he said, briefly. The duchess paled as she looked at him. "Not that, Fritz!" she cried. "Not that!" "Too late, madame," he said. "My honour demands it." The duchess shivered, and her face seemed suddenly to shrink and age. Then she stood proudly upright. What honour demanded she would be the last to evade. "Perhaps monsieur will deny," she said, looking at Cranford, coldly, "that he wrote this note to her and her sister the very first day of his sojourn here?" and she held out to him the slip of paper. Cranford took it and read it at a glance, while Nell stared at it with starting eyes. "No," he said, "I don't deny that I wrote it; but--" "And perhaps mademoiselle herself will deny that she asserted to Monsieur Tellier that she did not know her rescuer? Here are her words," and she produced a second note. "I deny nothing," said Susie, proudly, and she looked the duchess unflinchingly in the face. Cranford walked straight over to the Prince of Markeld. "Wasn't it Miss Rushford who told you?" he asked. "No, it was the note," answered the Prince, fiercely. "Which Tellier stole from Miss Rushford's desk," added Cranford, sternly, "leaving this tracing in its stead," and he took from his pocketbook a slip of paper. "Such methods are doubtless characteristic of the Paris police, but they seem to me almost as unworthy as those employed by us." "You are right," agreed the Prince, his face livid. "That dog shall pay for it!" "My nephew had nothing whatever to do with it," broke in the duchess, sharply. "It was I who secured the note, who persuaded him to--" But the Prince stopped her with a gesture. "Miss Rushford was not in the plot," continued Cranford, earnestly. "I hope you will believe me. That it should have come so near wrecking my own life was bad enough; that it should wreck another's--an innocent person's--that would be frightful! She warned me explicitly that she would no longer be a party to the deception, that she was going to tell you--I thought she had told you. I remember well how warmly she spoke of your cause; how she detested the course I was pursuing--how she made me ashamed of myself--ashamed to look at her. I suppose some mistaken notion of honour held her back from telling, since it was in her service and her sister's that I had disclosed myself--" "A message for His Lordship," said Pelletan from the door. Cranford took it. "You will pardon me," he said. "It is marked urgent," and he tore it open. His face brightened as he read it. "Monsieur le Prince," he said, warmly, turning to Markeld, "I congratulate you from the bottom of my heart!" and he handed him the message. Markeld took the paper and glanced at it, then, with beaming eyes, held out his hand. And the duchess, looking on, grew suddenly young again!