"I am Lady Dennisford," she said. "What is your business with me?"
"You do not recognize me, Lady Dennisford?" I asked.
"Your voice is familiar," she answered, "and--why, you have a look of Hardross Courage! Who are you?"
"I am Hardross Courage," I answered. "Please do not look at me as though I were something uncanny. The report of my death was a little premature!"
"My dear Hardross!" she exclaimed. "You have taken my breath away! I am delighted, of course; but"--she continued, looking at me wonderingly--"what has happened to you? Where did you get those clothes?"
"I am going to explain everything to you, Lady Dennisford," I declared; "but before I do so, let me ask you something! I have given you one shock! Can you stand another?"
"You see before you," I answered, "one dead man who has come to life. Can you bear to hear of another?"
Then every shred of color left her cheeks, and she trembled like one stricken with an ague. But all the time her eyes were pleading passionately with mine, as though it lay in my power to make the thing which she longed for true.
"It is the truth," I answered. "He is alive."
I caught her just in time, and led her to the sofa. Her face was bloodless, even to the lips.
"Lady Dennisford," I said earnestly, "for his sake, for mine, bear up. Don't let me have to call for the servants. We are both in danger. Your people will probably be questioned."
"I will be brave," she answered with quivering lips; "but what did it mean--at Saxby then? Why, there was a funeral!"
"He was hard-pressed," I told her, "and it was the only way to save him. Be brave, Lady Dennisford, for I have come to you for help!"
"I will do everything you ask me to," she answered. "But tell me one thing more. He is alive!"
"He is in London," I answered. "He would have come himself, but the risk would have been greater. Will you listen to what I have to say?"
"You know what happened to him in Berlin fifteen years ago," I began. "He suffered for another's fault, but he suffered. His career was over, he was left with but two objects in life. One was a desire to reinstate himself; another, hatred for the country whose spies had brought ruin upon him. He changed his identity, but he remained at Berlin. For years he met with no success. Then fortune favored him. By chance he picked up one of the threads of the most cunning, the most cruel, the most skilfully thought-out plots against this country which the secret history of the world had ever known. He escaped to London, but spies were already on his track. I saved him from death once, and from that moment I, too, was drawn into the vortex. Let me tell you exactly what has happened to us since we joined forces."