"Well, last January, I was staying with my mother at the _Hôtel Adlon_, in Berlin, for though I have a place near Monmouth called Huttoft Hall, left to me by my father, Sir Alexander Craig, I am constantly on the Continent. As a bachelor I prefer life abroad, and indeed, at that time, I had not been in England since I came of age, four years before. At the hotel, I found Lola staying with her uncle--that man!" and he pointed to Jeanjean--held there prisoner. "He called himself Dr. Paul Arendt, and gave himself out to be a Belgian from Liège. He was very affable, and we became on friendly terms, while my mother took a great fancy to Lola. After about ten days or so an English friend of Arendt's, a young man named Richard Perceval, arrived, and we three men went about Berlin, and saw the sights and the night-life, a good deal together. This went on for nearly three weeks, Lola and I becoming very fast friends. At last, however, her uncle being suddenly recalled to Paris, we were compelled to part, though we constantly exchanged letters. From Berlin, my mother moved to Cannes, and I followed her. We spent February and March on the Riviera, and then went north to the Italian Lakes, the most lovely spot in Europe in the springtide." He paused and, turning to the girl, said, "Now, Lola, will you explain what happened?"
The man under arrest again fought violently for freedom. His face was flushed with exertion, his long teeth clenched, his black eyes starting wildly from his head. Now that the villainous old man he had obeyed as master was dead, he saw that he must, at all hazards, save himself.
From his grey lips there issued a torrent of abuse, and the most fearful maledictions, in the French tongue.
Lola, requested by her lover to speak, held her breath for a moment, and then, with an effort, calming the flood of emotion that arose within her, said in her pretty English--
"After we met in Berlin, I, at my uncle's orders, ingratiated myself with Lady Craig, for the purpose of ascertaining whether she had with her jewellery of any value. Meanwhile, finding that Edouard had become very friendly with me, he at once instituted inquiries and found that Lady Craig was widow of Sir Alexander Craig, Knight, who had died leaving his only son possessor of a great fortune and a large estate near Monmouth. He also, through inquiries made by Vernon, found that Edouard had not been in England since he came of age. Vernon and my uncle met secretly one day at Frankfort, whereupon the crafty old man elaborated an ingenious plan which, within a few days, was put into execution. Among Vernon's wily confederates was a very smart, gentlemanly young man named Richard Perceval, who had been an actor, and who was the same height and much the same build as Edouard. This man came to our hotel in Berlin, but with what object I was, then, entirely ignorant. I now know that the reason he joined us was in order to carefully watch Mr. Craig's manners, his gait, his style of dress, and all his idiosyncrasies. While Edouard was unaware of it, he took many snapshots of him in secret, and one day for a joke they both went to a photographer's and had their portraits taken, the object of my uncle and Perceval being to obtain a thoroughly good likeness of M'sieur Craig. After three weeks, however, their preparations being completed, though I, of course, had no suspicion as to what was intended, we left Berlin and returned to Paris."