She rose to her feet and looked him full in the face.  She seemed to be following out her own train of thought rather than taking note of his words.

“Even now,” she said thoughtfully, “I am not sure that I can trust you.  I have a good mind to fight or scream my way out of this house, and go myself to see Victor.”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“The fighting or the screaming will not be necessary, dear Countess,” he said.  “The doors are open to you.  But it is as clear as day that if you go to the hotel or near it you will at once be recognised, and recognition means arrest.  There is a limit beyond which one cannot help a wilful woman.  Take your life in your hands and go your own way, or trust in us who are doing our best to save you.”

“And what of Reginald Brott?” she asked.

“Brott?” the Prince repeated impatiently.  “Who cares what becomes of him?  You have made him seem a fool, but, Lucille, to tell you the truth, I am sorry that we did not leave this country altogether alone.  There is not the soil for intrigue here, or the possibility.  Then, too, the police service is too stolid, too inaccessible.  And even our friends, for whose aid we are here—­well, you heard the Duke.  The cast-iron Saxon idiocy of the man.  The aristocracy here are what they call bucolic.  It is their own fault.  They have intermarried with parvenus and Americans for generations.  They are a race by themselves.  We others may shake ourselves free from them.  I would work in any country of the globe for the good of our cause, but never again in England.”

Lucille shivered a little.

“I am not in the humour for argument,” she declared.  “If you would earn my gratitude take that note to my husband.  He is the only man I feel sure of—­whom I know can protect me.”

The Prince bowed low.

“It is our farewell, Countess,” he said.

“I cannot pretend,” she answered, “to regret it.”

Saxe Leinitzer left the room.  There was a peculiar smile upon his lips as he crossed the hall.  Brott was still awaiting for him.

“Mr. Brott,” he said, “the Countess is, as I feared, too agitated to see you again for the present, or any one else.  She sends you, however, this message.”

He took the folded paper from his waistcoat pocket and handed it to the other man.  Brott read it through eagerly.  His eyes shone.

“She accepts the situation, then?” he exclaimed.

“Precisely!  Will you pardon me, my friend, if I venture upon one other word.  Lucille is not an ordinary woman.  She is not in the least like the majority of her sex, especially, I might add, amongst us.  The fact that her husband was living would seriously influence her consideration of any other man—­as her lover.  The present crisis, however, has changed everything.  I do not think that you will have cause to complain of her lack of gratitude.”