"You must have wondered," said the countess finally, "what the
object of Rokoff's persecution could be. It is very simple. The
count is intrusted with many of the vital secrets of the ministry
of war. He often has in his possession papers that foreign powers
would give a fortune to possess--secrets of state that their agents
would commit murder and worse than murder to learn.

"There is such a matter now in his possession that would make
the fame and fortune of any Russian who could divulge it to his
government. Rokoff and Paulvitch are Russian spies. They will
stop at nothing to procure this information. The affair on the
liner--I mean the matter of the card game--was for the purpose of
blackmailing the knowledge they seek from my husband.

"Had he been convicted of cheating at cards, his career would have
been blighted. He would have had to leave the war department. He
would have been socially ostracized. They intended to hold this
club over him--the price of an avowal on their part that the count
was but the victim of the plot of enemies who wished to besmirch
his name was to have been the papers they seek.

"You thwarted them in this. Then they concocted the scheme whereby
my reputation was to be the price, instead of the count's. When
Paulvitch entered my cabin he explained it to me. If I would obtain
the information for them he promised to go no farther, otherwise
Rokoff, who stood without, was to notify the purser that I was
entertaining a man other than my husband behind the locked doors
of my cabin. He was to tell every one he met on the boat, and when
we landed he was to have given the whole story to the newspaper
men.