Penelope shivered again.  Her face showed signs of distress.

“I do not think,” she said, “that I am a nervous person, but I cannot bear to think of it even now.”

“Naturally,” Mr. Harvey answered.  “We were all fond of Dicky, and such a thing has never happened, so far as I am aware, in any European country.  My own private secretary murdered in broad daylight and with apparent impunity!”

“Murdered—­and robbed!” she whispered, looking up at him with a white face.

The frown on the Ambassador’s forehead darkened.

“Not only that,” he declared, “but the secrets of which he was robbed have gone to the one country interested in the knowledge of them.”

“You are sure of that?” she asked hoarsely.

“I am sure of it,” Mr. Harvey answered.

Penelope drew a little breath between her teeth.  Her thoughts flashed back to a recent dinner party.  The Prince was once more at her side.  Almost she could hear his voice—­low, clear, and yet with that note of inexpressible, convincing finality.  She heard him speak of his country reverently, almost prayerfully; of the sacrifices which true patriotism must always demand.  What had been in his mind, she wondered, at the back of his inscrutable eyes, gazing, even at that moment, past the banks of flowers, across the crowded room with all its splendor of light and color, through the walls,—­whither!  She brushed the thought away.  It was absurd, incredible!  She was allowing herself to be led away by her old distrust of this man.

“I remarked just now,” Mr. Harvey continued, “that such a thing had never happened, so far as I was aware, in any European country.  My own words seem to suggest something to me.  These methods are not European.  They savor more of the East.”

“I think you had better go on,” she said quietly.  “There is something in your mind.  I can see that.  You have told me so much that you had better tell me the rest.”

“The contents of those despatches,” Mr. Harvey continued, “intrusted in duplicate, as you have doubtless surmised, to Fynes and to Coulson, contained an assurance that the sending of our fleet to the Pacific was in fact, as well as in appearance, an errand of peace.  It was a demonstration, pure and simple.  Behind it there may have lain, indeed, a masterful purpose, the determination of a great country to affirm her strenuous existence in a manner most likely to impress the nations unused to seeing her in such a role.  It became necessary, in view of certain suspicions, for me to be able to prove to the Government here the absolutely pacific nature of our great enterprise.  Those despatches contained such proof.  And now listen, Penelope.  Before the murder of poor Dicky Vanderpole, we know for a fact that a great nation who chooses to consider herself our enemy in Eastern waters was straining every nerve to prepare for war.  Today those preparations have slackened.  A great loan has been withdrawn in Paris, an invitation cabled to our fleet to visit Yokohama.  These things have a plain reading.”