The White Lie

had g

escaped capture in Bond Street, and had been compelled to fly and

nions in penal servitude at Cayenne, a cloud o

e matter caused great suspense and serious consideration, while it had cost the Earl of Bracondale, as Foreign Minister, the greatest efforts of the most delicate diplomacy to hold his own in defiance to the German intentions. For two whole months t

who kept Darnborough informed of all in progress, was Lord Bracondale able

was assured that never in this decade had the European outlook been so peaceful, and that our relations

n kept in the vicinity of the North Sea, and that the destroyer flotillas were lying

ugh the secret of England's weakness was known and freely commented upon in Government circles in Berlin, yet the clamor

ir plot to rob Matheson and Wilson's, in Bond Street, had

is sudden departure was due to the death of his uncle, a landowner near Va

g adventurer at the Hotel Terminus at Lyons one day in November, and that three days later Ralph and Jean were married a

day at their hotel-a modest one near

ife in prison, Carlier was ever chivalrous, even considerate, towards a woman. He was coarser, and outwardly more brutal than Ralph Ansell, whose veneer of polish she, in her ign

a woman's intuition, she knew that in this companion of her husband's she had a true friend. And he, on h

ecret he sighed for her and for her future. She was fa

he mystery surrounding Ralph

hours, talking confidentially in undertones. Then, two months after their marriage, came a telegram one day, stating that her father had died suddenly.

they first took a small, cosy apartment of five rooms in the Austerlitz quarter; but as funds

n quickly to neglect her, to spend his days in the cafés, often in Adolphe's company, while the men he brought to their room

the poor circumstances in which already, after ten months of married life, she now fo

servation showed her that he sympathised with her and admired her-in fact, that he was

the Boulogne quarter, not far from the Seine, a poor, working-class neighbourhood. The rooms, four in number, were furnished i

iss embroidery, and wearing a little apron of spotted print-for their circumstances did not permit the k

r parents were now both dead, and she had no one in whom to confide her suspicions or fears. Besides, day after day, Ralph went out in the morning after his café-au-lait, and only retu

nnoyed because the evening meal which she had so carefully cooked

n her lap, there arose memories of that warm afternoon when, in that charming little fishing village in England,

r a marguerite. This she wore in the breast of her gown, and its sight caused her to reflect that on that never-to-be-forgotten afternoon at M

house was somewhat secluded, situated as it was in a big square courtyard away from the main thoroughfare. Because it was quiet, Ralph had taken it, and further, becaus

was upon a high, blank, dirty wall, while below, amo

he furniture consisted of a cheap little walnut sideboard, upon which stood a photograph in a frame, a decanter, a china sugar-bowl, and some plates, while near

ue border and places laid for two, and four rush-bottomed chairs placed upon the

ending one of Ralph's shirts-and

what mysterious business Ralph has so constantly with Adolphe? An

fter dusk, and sometimes they had gone to a cinema or to one of the cheaper music-halls. But, alas! nowadays he never invited her to go with him. Usually he rose at noon, after smoking many cigarettes

tmartre as "The American." She was in ignorance, too, how Ralph, finding himself without funds, had gone to th

eign spy. But the stout, fair-moustached man who lived in the fine house standing in its own spacious grounds out

d extradited to England charged with murder. So if you value your neck, it will

shown his v

but a few hours later, after reflecting upon the whole of the grim

tances, Jean might, he thought, have been induced to assist him in some of his swindling operations, just as the wives of oth

he and Carlier were

hough the whole circumstances puzzled her, and often she recollected how happy she had been at the Maison C

her mind, when suddenly she was recalled to her

ried roughly.

he replied, in French, jumping to her feet and