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 came to make their acquaintance?” asked the Senator, in an arid tone.

“I traveled in the same ship with them from New York, and General Sadgrove, with whom they stayed on arrival, happened to be the uncle of my friend and secretary, Alec Forsyth,” Beaumanoir made answer.

An amused twinkle flashed into the Senator’s clear eyes. He was quite certain now that the man was an impostor with designs on the three millions. The only spice of truth in the fellow’s story, he told himself, probably was that he had sailed in the St. Paul, which would have given him the opportunity of gathering from his wife or Leonie the particulars he was now working on. The Senator had no doubt that if he accompanied this rather poor specimen of a criminal decoy an attempt would be made to relieve him of the bonds—possibly to murder him. It was all a little too thin—especially the dangling of an exalted title as a bait to catch an American. This part of the scheme really annoyed him, as casting on a foible of his fellow-countrymen a reflection which he felt to be not wholly undeserved. The Senator became dangerous.

“Very well, your Grace; if my family is