happily ever after. Did you know of her engagement?"

"No," replied Ivor. "I saw Miss de Renzie often when she was acting in
London a year ago; but after she went to Paris--of course, she's very
busy and has crowds of friends; and I've only crossed once or twice
since, on hurried visits; so we haven't met, or written to each other."

("Very good reason," I thought bitterly, behind my sofa. "You've been
busy, too--falling in love with Diana Forrest.")

"It hasn't been announced yet, but I thought as an old friend you might
have been told. I believe Mademoiselle wants to surprise everybody when
the right time comes--if the poor girl isn't ruined irretrievably in
this affair of ours."

"Is there really serious danger of that?" "The most serious. If you
can't save her, not only will the _Entente Cordiale_ be shaken to its
foundations (and I say nothing of my own reputation, which is at stake),
but her future happiness will be broken in the crash, and--she says--she
will not live to suffer the agony of her loss. She will kill herself if
disaster comes; and though suicide is usually the last resource of a
coward, Mademoiselle de Renzie is no coward, and I'm inclined to think I
should come to the same resolve in her place."

"Tell me what I am to do," said Ivor, evidently moved by the Foreign
Secretary's strange words, and his intense earnestness.

"You will go to Paris by the first train to-morrow morning, without
mentioning your intention to anyone; you will drive at once to some
hotel where you have never stayed and are not known. I will find means