something wrong."

"In what way?"

"You are afraid of your thoughts. You can see that Madame de Staemer and
Colonel Menendez are deliberately concealing something from Paul
Harley, and you don't know where your duty lies. Am I right?"

She met my glance for a moment in a startled way, then: "Yes," she
said, softly; "you are quite right. How have you guessed?"

"I have tried very hard to understand you," I replied, "and so perhaps
up to a point I have succeeded."

"Oh, Mr. Knox." She suddenly laid her hand upon my arm. "I am oppressed
with such a dreadful foreboding, yet I don't know how to explain it to
you."

"I understand. I, too, have felt it."

"You have?" She paused, and looked at me eagerly. "Then it is not just
morbid imagination on my part. If only I knew what to do, what to
believe. Really, I am bewildered. I have just left Madame de Staemer--"

"Yes?" I said, for she had paused in evident doubt.

"Well, she has utterly broken down."

"Broken down?"