Leona Lalage held herself up talking bravely about the weather, whilst Prout was dumb with admiration of her audacity. Her very recklessness inspired his respect. He little knew of the deadly fear and suffering concealed behind that smiling mask. The last thing he saw as he closed the door of the brougham was an averted face and a small hand.

The blood horses dashed on, whilst Leona Lalage lay back against the cushions and fainted for the third time in her life. It had been a wonderful effort to put the deadly feeling off so long, but her iron will had conquered.

She came to herself again with a shudder and a feeling of anguish in every limb. She was not suspected yet, or even a fool of an English detective would not have shown her that picture. Broken and agitated as she was, her quick brain began to work again.

In the first place she must get those notes back from Isidore. Even if they had to be obtained by force it must be done. She took a visiting card from her case, and in as steady a hand as possible penciled a line or two on the back asking Isidore to come round and dine with her that evening. Once this was done and left at the capitalist\'s rooms she felt a little easier in her mind. She was doing something.

Hence she drove on to the Metropole with the hope of seeing Maitrank. She had to wait there till she was angry and impatient. Hitherto she had not had to wait. She was going to get to the bottom of that diamond business if she had to stay all day. A stolid clerk came out and said Herr Maitrank was disengaged.

Maitrank, in his shirtsleeves, was smoking one of his black cigars. He made no apology for his attire nor for the rank tobacco between his yellow teeth. How different the last time when they had met in the millionaire\'s office.

"Why did you keep me waiting so long?" the Countess demanded.

Maitrank chuckled. He admired a fighter, and here was one to his hand. It was pretty audacious in a woman who had swindled him out of a fortune.

"I was merely deferring the pleasure, my dear," he said. "What can I do for you? Any fresh loan on the banks of the clouds or castles in the air or anything of that kind? Or do you wish to sell me any diamonds?"

"I swear to you," the Countess said, "that I was innocent over those diamonds. I honestly believed them to be genuine, and worth far more money than the sum for which I parted with them. I feel now that I have been tricked. You old wolf, you had the real stones taken away for some purpose of your own."

She bent over the table and shook her clenched hand angrily in the old man\'s face. He showed his teeth in a snarl.

"Gently, gently," he growled. "Let us look at those gems. I have them here. See, are those the ones you passed over to me?"

He pitched the glittering gauds contemptuously on the desk. Leona examined them carefully So far as she could see no change had been made. And where the stones had been filed she could see the dull scratched edges. Was this the work of the hidden enemy or another cruel stroke of ill fortune?

"They look like the same," she admitted grud............