“No, thank you,” I said hurriedly, for I did not wish to be interrupted in the midst of my important interview with Maxine.  “If the light comes on, it will he all right:  if not, I will put back the curtains; and it is not yet quite dark.  Show the lady in.”

Into the pink twilight of the curtained room came Maxine de Renzie, whose tall and noble figure I recognised in its plain, close-fitting black dress, though her wide brimmed hat was draped with a thickly embroidered veil that completely hid her face, while long, graceful lace folds fell over and obscured the bright auburn of her hair.

“One moment,” I said.  “Let me push the curtains back.  The electricity has failed.”

“No, no,” she answered.  “Better leave them as they are.  The lights may come on and we be seen from outside.  Why,”—­as she drew nearer to me, and the servant closed the door, “I thought I recognised that voice!  It is Ivor Dundas.”

“No other,” said I.  “Didn’t the—­weren’t you warned who would be the man to come?”

“No,” she replied.  “Only the assumed name of the messenger and place of meeting were wired.  It was safer so, even though the telegram was in a cypher which I trust nobody knows—­except myself and one other.  But I’m glad—­glad it’s you.  It was clever of—­him, to have sent you.  No one would dream that—­no one would think it strange if they knew—­as I hope they won’t—­that you came to Paris to see me.  Oh, the relief that you’ve got through safely!  Nothing has happened?  You have—­the paper?”

“Nothing has happened, and I have the paper,” I reassured her.  “No adventures, to speak of, on the way, and no reason to think I’ve been spotted.  Anyway, here I am; and here is something which will put an end to your anxiety.”  And I tapped the breast of my coat, meaningly.

“Thank God!” breathed Maxine, with a thrilling note in her voice which would have done her great credit on the stage, though I am sure she was never further in her life from the thought of acting.  “After all I’ve suffered, it seems too good to be true.  Give it to me, quick, Ivor, and let me go.”

“I will,” I said.  “But you might seem to take just a little more interest in me, even if you don’t really feel it, you know.  You might just say, ‘How have you been for the last twelve months?’”

“Oh, I do take an interest, and I’m grateful to you—­I can’t tell you how grateful.  But I have no time to think either of you or myself now,” she said, eagerly.  “If you knew everything, you’d understand.”

“I know practically nothing,” I confessed; “still, I do understand.  I was only teasing you.  Forgive me.  I oughtn’t to have done it, even for a minute.  Here is the letter-case which the Foreign—­which was given to me to bring to you.”

“Wait!” she exclaimed, still in the half whisper from which she had never departed.  “Wait!  It will he better to lock the door.”  But even as she spoke, there came a knock, loud and insistent.  With a spring, she flung herself on me, her hand fumbling for the pocket I had tapped suggestively a moment ago.  I let her draw out the long case which I had been guarding—­the case I had not once touched since leaving London, except to feel anxiously for its outline through my buttoned coat.  At least, whatever might be about to happen, she had it in her own hands now.