“What was the dreadful thing that happened?” I asked, as she paused, pressing her hands against her temples.

“The necklace was stolen from Raoul by a thief, who must have been one of the most expert in the world.  Can you imagine Raoul’s feelings?  He came to me in despair, asking my advice.  What was he to do?  He dared not appeal to the police, or the Duchess’s secret would come out.  And he couldn’t bear to tell her of the loss, not only because it would be such a blow to her, as she was depending on the money from the sale of the jewels, but because she knew that he was in some difficulties, and might be tempted to believe that he’d only pretended the diamonds were stolen—­while really he’d sold them for his own use.”

“As she’s fond of him, and trusts him, probably she would have thought no such thing,” I tried to comfort Maxine.  “But certainly, it was a rather bad fix.”

“Rather bad fix!  Oh, you laconic creatures, Englishmen.  All you think of is to hide your feelings behind icy words.  As for me—­well, there was nothing I wouldn’t have done to help him—­nothing.  My life would have been a small thing to give.  I would have given my soul.  And already a thought came flashing into my mind.  I begged Raoul to wait, and say nothing to the Duchess, who didn’t even know yet that he’d come back from Amsterdam.  The thought in my mind was about the commission from your Secretary for Foreign Affairs.  As I told you, I’d just sent him word in the usual cypher and through the usual channels, that I couldn’t do what he wanted.  He’d offered me eight thousand pounds to undertake the service, and four more if I succeeded.  I believed I could succeed if I tried.  And with the few thousands I’d saved up, and selling such jewels as I had, I could make up the sum Raoul had been told to ask for the necklace.  Then he could give it to the Duchess, and she need never know that the diamonds had been stolen.  All that night I lay awake thinking, thinking.  Next day, at a time when I knew Raoul would be working in his office, I went to see him there, and cheered him up as well as I could.  I told him that in a few days I hoped to have eighteen or twenty thousand pounds in my hands—­all for him.  To let him have the money would make me happier than I’d ever been.  At first he said he wouldn’t take it from me—­I knew he would say that!  But, at last, after I’d cried and begged, and persuaded, he consented; only it was to be a loan, and some how, some time, he would pay me back.  In that office there are several great safes; and when we had grown quite happy and gay together, I made Raoul tell me which was the most important of all—­where the really sacred and valuable things were kept.  He laughed and pointed out the most interesting one—­the one, he said, which held all the deepest secrets of French foreign diplomacy.  I was sure then that the thing I had to get for the British Foreign Secretary must be there, though it was such a new thing that