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 of the huge leather club chairs and watched her visitor with attention.

"Here goes!" Victoria broke out suddenly, flinging herself heavily into the chair opposite. She plunged into the story of the Auray robbery, described the Englishman minutely, the countess and her jewels, the nurse's story and its contradictions, the death of the child, the fruitless efforts of the police, Sonia's constant annoyance at being called upon to identify arrested persons bearing no possible resemblance to the criminal, her own return to America, her meeting with Valdeck and her difficulty in remembering where she had seen him—crowned by the sudden revealing glimpse of the countess's brooch on the breast of Philippa Ford, and the instant flash of recollection that, in spite of the change of hair and the disappearance of the mustache, showed her the mock O'Farrell in Valdeck the Pole.

Her friend heard her out without interruption, proof positive of a most unusual female intellect. When at last Victoria paused, Mrs. Durham began tearing the edge of a magazine into infini- 127