If Simone had not already telephoned to the private office of the Inner Circle\'s editor, she might have changed her mind about going there that night. She was less superstitious and of harder mental fibre than most Frenchwomen of the south and of her class; but after the quarrel between the Duke and Duchess something within her shrank from keeping the secret appointment she had made.

It was not that she was suddenly conscience-stricken, or that she thought her mistress had suffered enough without having the skeleton in the cupboard dangled in front of the public. The woman was incapable of any real love save self love, but she liked Juliet, and would have inflicted upon her no great gratuitous pain. The pain to be inflicted in this instance, however (as well as other instances in the past), was not gratuitous. Simone would be magnificently paid for inflicting it, and so far as Juliet was concerned, she could earn the reward without a qualm. It was for herself that she hesitated; and she did not quite know why.

That was the trouble! If she had known, she could have argued out the two sides of the matter, for and against. But it was only a vague sort of presentiment she felt, that she would somehow be sorry if she gave this story to the paper she served. And it might not be a proper presentiment at all, but only a form of indigestion. She had (she too vividly recalled) taken at luncheon three helpings of lobster salad, a dish which never agreed with her. Besides, she was naturally excited over her part in the events of the day. And then she had telephoned the office. She had camouflaged her message, lest it should be overheard, but what she had said would inform the editor that she had up her sleeve the best tit-bit he had ever got from her.

To-morrow afternoon the Inner Circle (a weekly publication) would be on sale, and the "Whisperer\'s" columns were always kept back till the latest possible moment, on account of just such morsels dropping in.

But to-night the last paragraphs were to be held up expressly for Simone almost beyond the time-limit. She was bound to "make good" or she would never be trusted again, and if the editor were satisfied she was to receive exactly five times the sum she got for more or less valuable items supplied each week.

With a vague, uneasy presentiment in one scale, and five hundred dollars in the other (notes, not a cheque; the Inner Circle never paid cheques for "Whisperer" stuff) the presentiment was outweighed. Simone had in any case a dinner engagement which nothing short of death would have induced her to miss; and the Duchess had not been gone quite ten minutes when she flew out to keep it.

She said nothing to her dinner companion, however, about the later appointment, and excused herself early on the plea that it would be "like Madame to flash in at home, clamouring for her maid, between Mrs. Van Esten\'s party and the opera, if only for a minute."

Certainly it was little more than a minute that Simone remained at the Phayre house after being brought back after dinner in a taxi. At the end of that time she was out again, and on her way to the office of the Inner Circle.

About this place there was always something mysterious even to Simone\'s practical and unimaginative mind, and the private office of the editor was the heart of the mystery—the inner circle of the Inner Circle. For years she had been a highly paid contributor to the scandalous little paper, ever since she had entered her first "smart" situation in New York, and had been approved by a man whose outward business was straightforward reporting for the "Society" columns of a reputable daily. When in town, Simone had been in the habit of calling in person instead of trusting to the post, and since her value had become recognized, she was invariably received by the editor himself in that very private sanctuary of his. Yet to this day she had never seen his face, and did not know his real name.

"Mr. Jones will speak to you," was the message telephoned down from regions above to the amateurish little reception room, where an elderly, mild-faced lady in old-fashioned dres............