Very possibly you will not unite with me; but these little catechisms are, once in a while, indispensable, to vindicate one’s course to one’s-self.

This Ulster was a handsome youth;—­the rogues have generally all the good looks.  There was nothing else remarkable about him but his quickness; he was perpetually on the alert; by constant activity, the rust was never allowed to collect on his faculties; his sharpness was distressing,—­he appeared subject to a tense strain.  Now his quill scratched over the paper unconcernedly, while he could join as easily in his master’s conversation; nothing seemed to preoccupy him, or he held a mind open at every point.  It is pitiful to remember him that morning, sitting quiet, unconscious, and free, utterly in the hands of that mighty Inquisition, the Metropolitan Police, with its countless arms, its cells and myrmidons in the remotest corners of the Continent, at the mercy of so merciless a monster, and momently closer involved, like some poor prey round which a spider spins its bewildering web.  It was also curious to observe the sudden suspicion that darkened his face at some innocent remark,—­the quick shrinking and intrenched retirement, the manifest sting and rancor, as I touched his wound with a swift flash of my slender weapon and sheathed it again, and, after the thrust, the espionage, and the relief at believing it accidental.  He had many threads to gather up and hold;—­little electric warnings along them must have been constantly shocking him.  He did that part well enough; it was a mistake, to begin with; he needed prudence.  At that time I owed this Ulster nothing; now, however, I owe him a grudge, for some of the most harassing hours of my life were occasioned me by him.  But I shall not cherish enmity on that account.  With so promising a beginning, he will graduate and take his degree from the loftiest altitude in his line.  Hemp is a narcotic; let it bring me forgetfulness.

In Paris I found it not difficult to trace such a person, since he was both foreign and unaccustomed.  It was ascertained that he had posted several letters.  A person of his description had been seen to drop a letter, the superscription of which had been read by the one who picked it up for him.  This superscription was the address of the very person who was likely to be the agent of the former possessors of the diamond, and had attracted attention.  After all,—­you know the Secret Force,—­it was not so impossible to imagine what this letter contained, despite of its cipher.  Such a person also had been met among the Jews, and at certain shops whose reputation was not of the clearest.  He had called once or twice on Mme. de St. Cyr, on business relative to a vineyard adjoining her chateau in the Gironde, which she had sold to a wine-merchant of England.  I found a zest in the affair, as I pursued it.