a great head thickly covered with iron-gray hair.

He trusted no one, and this accounted for his presence in Geneva in
March, of the year 1903, whither he had gone to receive the report of the
secret agents whom he had lately despatched to Paris on an errand of
peculiar delicacy. The agents had failed in their mission, and Von
Stroebel was not tolerant of failure. Perhaps if he had known that within
a week the tapers would burn about his bier in Saint Stephen's Cathedral,
at Vienna, while his life and public services would be estimated in
varying degrees of admiration or execration by the newspapers of Europe,
he might not have dealt so harshly with his hard-worked spies.

It was not often that the light in the old man's eyes was as gentle as
now. He had sent his secret agents away and was to return to Vienna on
the following day. The young man whom he now entertained in his
apartments received his whole attention. He picked up the card which lay
on the table and scrutinized it critically, while his eyes lighted with
sudden humor.

The card was a gentleman's _carte de visite_, and bore the name John
Armitage.

"I believe this is the same alias you were using when I saw you in Paris.
Where did you get it?" demanded the minister.

"I rather liked the sound of it, so I had the cards made," replied the
young man. "Besides, it's English, and I pass readily for an Englishman.
I have quite got used to it."

"Which is not particularly creditable; but it's probably just as well