A large map of Virginia and a series of hunting prints hung on the untinted walls, and there were racks for guns, and a work-bench at one end of the room, where guns might be taken apart and cleaned.  A few novels, several three-year-old magazines and a variety of pipes remained on the shelf above the fireplace.  The house offered possibilities of meager comfort, and that was about all.  Armitage remembered what the agent through whom he had made the purchase had said—­that the place had proved too isolated for even a hunting preserve, and that its only value was in the timber.  He was satisfied with his bargain, and would not set up a lumber mill yet a while.  He lighted a cigar and settled himself in an easy chair before the fire, glad of the luxury of peace and quiet after his circuitous journey and the tumult of doubt and question that had shaken him.

He slit the wrapper of the Washington newspaper that Oscar had brought from the mountain post-office and scanned the head-lines.  He read with care a dispatch from London that purported to reflect the sentiment of the continental capitals toward Charles Louis, the new Emperor-king of Austria-Hungary, and the paper dropped upon his knees and he stared into the fire.  Then he picked up a paper of earlier date and read all the foreign despatches and the news of Washington.  He was about to toss the paper aside, when his eyes fell upon a boldly-headlined article that caused his heart to throb fiercely.  It recited the sudden reappearance of the fraudulent Baron von Kissel in Washington, and described in detail the baron’s escapades at Bar Harbor and his later career in California and elsewhere.  Then followed a story, veiled in careful phrases, but based, so the article recited, upon information furnished by a gentleman of extensive acquaintance on both sides of the Atlantic, that Baron von Kissel, under a new pseudonym, and with even more daring effrontery, had within a fortnight sought to intrench himself in the most exclusive circles of Washington.

Armitage’s cigar slipped from his fingers and fell upon the brick hearth as he read: 

“The boldness of this clever adventurer is said to have reached a climax in this city within a few days.  He had, under the name of Armitage, palmed himself off upon members of one of the most distinguished families of the capital, whom he had met abroad during the winter.  A young gentleman of this family, who, it will suffice to say, bears a commission and title from the American government, entertained a small company of friends at a Washington club only a few nights ago, and this plausible adventurer was among the guests.  He was recognized at once by one of the foreigners present, who, out of consideration for the host and fellow guests, held his tongue; but it is understood that this gentleman sought Armitage privately and warned him to leave Washington, which accounts for the fact that the sumptuous apartments at the New American in which Mr. John Armitage, alias Baron von Kissel, had established himself were vacated immediately.  None of those present at the supper will talk of the matter, but it has been the subject of lively gossip for several days, and the German embassy is said to have laid before the Washington police all the information in its archives relating to the American adventures of this impudent scoundrel.”