But--because I'm engaged to be married to--perhaps
you know that, though, among other things?"
"I've heard--a rumour. I didn't know that it amounted to an engagement.
Monsieur du Laurier is to be a thousand times congratulated."
"I love him dearly," I said simply. And, not because I am an actress,
but because I am a a woman and had suffered all that I could bear, tears
rose to my eyes. "I am true to him, and always have been. But--he is
horribly jealous. I can't explain Mr. Dundas' night visit in a way to
satisfy him. If Raoul finds out that an Englishman--well-known, but of
whom I never spoke--was at my house after midnight, he will believe I
have deceived him. Oh, Monsieur, if you would help me to keep this
secret I am telling you so frankly!"
"Keep the secret, yet use it to free the Englishman?" asked the Chief of
Police gravely.
"Yes, I ask no less of you; I beg, I implore you. It would kill me to
break with Raoul du Laurier."
"Dear Mademoiselle," said the good and gallant man, "trust me to do the
best I can for you." (I could see that my tears had moved him.) "A grief
to you would be a blow to Paris. Yet--well, as you have been frank, I
owe it to you to be equally so on my side.
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