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 finger of his left hand very slowly upon the back of his right.

“Try to compose yourself, liebes Fräulein,” he urged calmly, and, as she looked up at him: “You say he wanted to be rid of Herr Hammersley. Can you tell me then, why his men did not shoot him when they had him prisoner at Ashwater Park gates?”

“I do not know. Perhaps they would have done so if he hadn’t escaped.”

Von Stromberg paused again, and then, gently:

“You love Herr Hammersley a great deal, Fräulein?”

She bent her gaze upon him appealingly.

“Would I now be here, Excellenz?” she asked.

Von Stromberg bent his head and then got up and slowly paced the length of the room. When he returned there was another note in his voice. It was still quiet but the legato note had gone, and it was ice-cold.

“You do well to tell your story through the medium of sentiment which you well understand, rather than through the medium of logic, which you do not understand, which no woman understands.”

At his change of tone she glanced up. He was leering at her unpleasantly.

“I do not know what you mean,” she murmured.

“You are very clever, Fräulein, but your story has a great many holes in it—little holes which might grow into big ones, if one were disposed to enlarge them. There are several things which are not at all clear to me. Of course it must be as apparent to you as it is to me that if Herr Rizzio was an English agent, by remaining in England he had nothing to fear from you or anyone else. His object, too, in bringing you