Thus did this man of affairs, one who had been deep in many a brave intrigue, make known to the man who had employed him the supreme misfortune of their adventure. Had he said, "Your life is in such peril that you may not have another hour to live," it would have been no more than the truth. Their plot had failed and the story of it was abroad. This had he come from Paris to tell--this was the news that Richard Gessner heard with less apparent emotion than though one had told him of the pettiest event of a common day.
"The matter has been very badly bungled," he said. "I shall write to General Trepoff and complain of it. Do you not see how inconvenient this is? If the girl has escaped, she will be sheltered by the Revolutionaries, and if she knows my story, she will tell it to them. I may be followed here--to this very house. You know that these people stick at nothing. They would avenge this man's liberty whatever the price. What remains to discover is the precise amount of her knowledge. Does she know my name, my story? You must find that out, Zamoyski--there is not an hour to lose, as you say."
He repeated his fears, pacing the room and smoking incessantly. The whole danger of a situation is not usually realized upon its first statement, but every instant added to this man's apprehensions and brought the drops of sweat anew to his forehead. He had planned to arrest both Boriskoff and his daughter. The Russian Government, seeking the financial support of his house, fell in readily with his plans and commanded the police to assist him. Paul Boriskoff himself had been arrested at the frontier station upon an endeavor to return to Poland. His daughter Lois, warned in some mysterious manner, had fled from the school where she was being educated and put herself beyond the reach of her father's enemies. This was the simple story of the plot. But God alone could tell what the price of failure might be.
"It is very easy to say what we must do," the Count observed, "the difficulties remain. Identify this girl for us among the twenty thousand who answer to her description in Warsaw, and I will undertake that the Government shall deal well by her. But who is to identify her? Where is your agent to be found? Name him to me and the task begins to-night. We can do nothing more. I say again that my Government has done all in its power. The rest is with you, Herr Gessner, to direct us where we have failed."