his character of Paul Finglemore, or of Césarine's young man, as that remark lay clearly outside my secretarial functions.
Still, it flitted across my mind at the time that the Seer had made some casual remarks at Nice about a letter in Charles's pocket, presumably from Madame Picardet; and I reflected further that Madame Picardet in turn might possibly hold certain answers of Charles's, couched in such terms as he might reasonably desire to conceal from Amelia. Indeed, I must allow that under whatever disguise White Heather appeared to us, Charles was always that disguise's devoted slave from the first moment he met it. It occurred to me, therefore, that the clever little woman—call her what you will—might be the holder of more than one indiscreet communication.
'Under these circumstances,' Charles went on, in his austerest voice, 'I cannot consent to be a party to the arrest of White Heather. I—I decline to identify her. In point of fact'—he grew more emphatic as he went on—'I don't think there is an atom of evidence of any sort against her. Not,' he continued, after a pause, 'that I wish in any degree to screen the guilty. Césarine, now—Césarine we have liked and trusted. She has betrayed our trust. She has sold us to this fellow. I have no doubt at all that she gave him the diamonds from Amelia's rivière; that she took us by arrangement to meet him at Schloss Lebenstein; that she opened and
