table at his side. A disc of bronze, supported upon a carven tripod,
caught the light and challenged attention to its delicate traceries;
and within its border of asps and goat's horns he saw cut in the
dull metal a sphinx crucified upon an upright cross--an exact
facsimile of the device upon that strange opalized glass from some
far-away island which he had lately noted in the window in Mrs.
Hastings' drawing-room. Instantly his mind was besieged by a volley
of suppositions and imaginings, but even in his intense excitement
as to what this simple discovery might bode, he heard the prince's
soft reply to Mrs. Hastings:

"Madame," said the prince, "she is a loyal creature. Whatever she
does, she believes herself to be doing in my service. I trusted her.
I believed that such error was impossible to her."

"Error!" shrilled Mrs. Hastings, looking about her for support and
finding little in the aspect of Mr. Augustus Frothingham, who
appeared to be regarding the whole proceeding as one from which he
was to extract data to be thought out at some future infinitely
removed.

As for St. George, he had never had great traffic with a future
infinitely removed; he had a youthful and somewhat imaginative
fashion of striking before the iron was well in the fire.

"Your servant believed, then, your Highness," he said clearly,
"that in taking Miss Holland's life she was serving you?"

"I must regretfully conclude so."