“I confess I’d say it was not true,” she said, turning quite red.

“The chances are you wouldn’t even ask for proof.  So, you see, Miss Garrison behaved very generously when she condescended to hear your assertions instead of instructing the servant to direct you to the door.”

“She was above reproach, Bob.  I never saw anyone so calm, so composed and so frigidly agreeable.  If she had shown the faintest sign of anger, displeasure or even disgust, I could forgive her, but she acted just as if she were tolerating me rather than to lower herself to the point of seriously considering a word I uttered.  I know the prince is a villian.  I believe every word Phil says about him.”  She took Lord Bob’s hands in hers, and her deep, earnest eyes burnt conviction into his brain.

“And so do I Frances I am as sure that Ugo is a scoundrel as if I had personal knowledge of his transactions.  In fact, I have never believed in him.  You and I will stand together, dear, in this fight for poor old Phil, and, by the Lord Harry, they’ll find us worth backing to the finish.  If there’s anything to be done that can be done, we’ll do it, my girl.”  And he was amply repaid for his loyal declaration by the love that shone refulgent from her eyes.

Quentin naturally chafed under the restraint.  There was nothing he could do, nothing his friends could do, to avert the disaster that was daily drawing nearer.  Lord Bob infused a momentary spark of hope into the dying fire of his courage, but even the resourceful Briton admitted that the prospect was too gloomy to warrant the slightest encouragement.  They could gain absolutely no headway against the prince, for there was no actual proof to be had.  To find the strange woman who gave the first warning to Quentin was out of the question.  Turk had watched every movement of the prince and his aides in the hope of in some way securing a clue to her identity or whereabouts.  There was but one proposition left; the purchase of Courant.

This plan seemed feasible until Turk reported, after diligent search, that the French detective could not be found.  Dickey was for buying the two Italian noblemen, but that seemed out of the question, and it was unreasonable to suspect that the other hirelings recognized the prince as their real employer.  The slightest move to approach the two noblemen might prove disastrous, and wisdom cut off Dickey’s glorious scheme to give each of them “a hundred dollars to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

Quentin at last burst all bonds, and, finding himself out of the doctor’s hands, determined to make a last desperate appeal to Dorothy Garrison.  If that appeal failed, he would then give up the struggle; he would at least end the suspense.  He knew how difficult it would be to obtain an audience with her, but he went ahead with the confidence of the drowning man, the boldness of the man who is wounded to the death but does not know it.