“My statement is easily made,” said the Jew.  “I simply charge the Hon. Bertie Cecil with having negotiated a bill with my firm for L750 month, drawn in his own favour, and accepted at two months’ date by your lordship.  Your signature you, my lord marquis, admit to be a forgery.  With that forgery I charge your friend!”

Cecil stood silent, with a strange anguish on his face.

“I am not guilty,” he said quietly.

“Beauty—­Beauty!  Never say that to me!” said the Seraph.  “Do you think I can ever doubt you?”

“It is a matter of course,” replied Baroni, “that Mr. Cecil denies the accusation.  It is very wise.  But I must arrest Mr. Cecil!  Were you alone, my lord, you could prosecute or not, as you please; but ours is the money obtained by that forgery.  If Mr. Cecil will accompany me unresistingly, I will not summon legal force.”

“Cecil, tell me what is to be done?” said the Seraph hoarsely.  “I will send for the duke—­”

“Send for no one.  I will go with this man.  He is right as far as he knows.  The whole is a—­a mystery—­an error.”

Cecil hesitated a moment; then he stretched out his hand.  “Will you take it—­still?”

“Take it!  Before all the world, always, come what will!”

The Seraph’s voice rang clear as the ring of silver.  Another moment, and the door had closed.  Cecil went slowly out beside his accuser, not blaming the Jew in anything.

Once out in the air, the Hebrew laid his hand on his arm.  Presently, in a side-street, three figures loomed in the shadow of the houses—­a German official, the commissary of police, and an English detective.  The Hebrew had betrayed him, and arrested him in the open street.

In an instant all the pride and blood of his race was up.  He wrenched his wrists free and with his left arm felled the detective to earth with a crushing blow.  The German—–­a powerful and firmly-built man—­was on him at once, but Cecil’s science was the finer.  For a second the two rocked in close embrace, and then the German fell heavily.

The cries of Baroni drew a crowd at once, but Cecil dashed, with the swiftness of the deer, forward into the gathering night.

Flight!  The craven’s refuge—­the criminal’s resource!  Flight!  He wished in the moment’s agony that they would send a bullet through his brain.

Soon the pursuers were far behind.  But Cecil knew that he had but the few remaining hours of night left to save those for whom he had elected to sacrifice his life.

III.—­Under Another Flag