"To my chagrin, also, I found that Lieutenant Shacklock--as Gordon-Wright was known in Rome--knew of the charge. He was an intimate friend of my father's, but a man utterly without principle. I had to beg him not to tell my father. For Nardini, who had so many creatures in his pay, such an allegation was so very easy. As I afterwards established, the portfolio was placed in my drawer by a man who entered on pretence of examining the electric light. Nardini's object was to hold me in his power, to compel me to do his bidding, and assist in certain schemes he was contemplating before his fall. Surely it was the gravest charge that could have been made against a woman. It touched my honour, and that is the reason why when he fled I followed post-haste here to beg of him to say the word which must put an end to the proceedings pending against me. But, although I was successful in tracing him here, alas! I was too late. He died without clearing my honour, and on the third of November the charge against me will be heard by the Tribunal. How, now, can I hope to escape an unjust condemnation?" "Why didn't you make this explanation before?" I asked. "I might have assisted you to clear yourself." "How could I while Gordon-Wright lived? He was present in our apartment when the police found the portfolio, and even though Nardini might have caused the accusation to have been withdrawn he would have still been a witness against me." "But you knew who and what he was?" "Not at that time. I only knew that he was a great friend of my father's and lived at the Grand Hotel. But in looking through my father's private letters I have learned the ghastly truth--that he and Himes who were such constant visitors to our flat, both in Rome, Leghorn, or in fact anywhere where we took up our abode, were expert thieves working under my father's directions. True, I held both of them in dislike, but I never dreamed that living apart, Shacklock at the Grand and Himes at the Quirinale, they were in such active accord." "Then this charge against you will be made in Rome in November?" Sammy said, addressing her for the first time. "Yes," she sighed despairingly. "I shall be condemned in my absence, for how can I now hope to prove that I am innocent--that I was not even in Rome on that evening?" "Nardini was a blackguard!" Sammy cried. "If I had known that I'd have rung the truth out of him before he died--by Jove, I would! A man who plots against a woman's honour like that is the worst cad conceivable." "Ah, yes!" cried the unhappy girl. "It is that--it is my honour that is at stake. The man alleges that he found me alone in a common cafe-- and--and--" She burst into tears. I had listened to Lucie's extraordinary statement like a man in a dream. Ella tried to comfort her, but with very little avail. She had utterly broken down.