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 to retrace my steps to the hotel, when a man came out of the house, glanced about him as though in some doubt, and then looked closely at me. He walked to the corner of the street opposite, still looking at me, and after a minute of doubt, crossed to me.

"I am to give you this, sir," he said, speaking with the manner of a confidential servant.

"To me? I think not. What name?" I asked.

"I had no name given to me, but I was to say it was 'In the Name of a Woman!'"

"'In the Name of a Woman?'" I repeated. It could not be for me. I knew no such pass-word, and I connected it instantly with what I had seen at the café. I was about to send the man away, when it occurred to me that it might be a message from the Countess Bokara, and that, from a love of mystery, she had chosen this exceedingly ambiguous method of communication. I took the letter which the man held out, therefore, and read a message written in a woman's handwriting:—

"Follow the Bearer, In the Name of a Woman."

I was disposed to smile, but checked myself on seeing the servant's eyes fixed upon me.

"I am to follow you," I said gravely.

Without a word he led the way back to the house, through the deep gloomy archway, in which I noticed a number of servants and others lounging and waiting, and up three or four steps into the house. Turning to make sure that I was behind him, the man crossed a hall, in which were more men, some in uniform, through a curtained archway at the end, and up a broad stair