“It was nothing,” I said, “but if the service was of any value it has been a thousand times repaid by your kind words.”

“You can easily imagine,” said Maximilian, “that my friend here, after that interview, was naturally curious to find out something about you.”

She blushed and cast down her eyes; and the thought flashed across my mind that perhaps she had been likewise curious to find out something about me.

“I am a member,” said Maximilian, “of a secret society.  We have a ‘Bureau of Inquiry’ whose business it is to collect information, for the use of the society, concerning every person of any note.  This information is carefully tabulated and preserved, and added to from day to day; so that at any moment it is subject to the call of our officers.  When my friend desired to know something about you” (here the blue, wondering eyes were cast down again), “I sent a message to our Bureau of Inquiry, and received a reply which I have here.  I fear to show it to you.  The shock will be too great to learn in a moment the utter baseness of one in whom you have trusted.  I fear you have not the courage to endure such a blow; and at the same time I know of no better way to communicate to your purity and innocence the shocking facts which it is my duty to disclose.”

Estella smiled, and reached forth her hand for the paper with the dignity of conscious courage and high blood.

“Let me read it,” she said; “I do not think it can tell me anything I cannot endure.”

Maximilian delivered the paper into her hand.  I watched her face as she read it.  At first there was a look of wonder at the minuteness of the knowledge of her family which the paper revealed; then the interest became more intense; then the eyebrows began to rise and the blue eyes to dilate with horror; then an expression of scorn swept over her face; and as she read the last word she flung the paper from her as if it had been a serpent, and rising up, yes, towering, a splendid image of wrath, she turned upon us and cried out: 

“This is a base falsehood!  A cowardly trick to wound me!  A shameful attempt to injure my dear aunt.”

And, wheeling around on Rudolph, her eyes blazing, she said: 

“Unlock that door!  I shall reveal at once to the Prince this attack on his good name and Miss Frederika.  How dare you bring these men here with such falsehoods?”

Rudolph, alarmed for himself, hung his head in silence.  He was trembling violently.

“Rudolph,” said Maximilian, solemnly, “I call upon you, by the oath you have taken, to say to this lady whether or not the contents of that paper are true.”

“I believe them to be true,” responded Rudolph, in a low tone.

It was wonderful to see the fine indignation, the keen penetration that shone in Estella’s eyes, as she looked first at Rudolph and then at Maximilian.

“Rudolph,” said Maximilian, “by the oath you have taken, tell Miss Washington whether or not you paid $5,000 to her aunt, Maria Plunkett, for the purchase of her body, as set forth in that paper.”