I saw her eyes no more till Threlka came and lifted her head, offering her a cup of drink, and so standing patiently until again she had dismissal.
"But still it is all a puzzle to me, Madam," I began.

"I do not understand." "Well, when you stood at the door, my little shoe in your pocket, when you kissed my hand that first night, when you told me what you would do did you love a woman--when I saw something new in life I had not seen--why, then, in the devil's resolution that no woman in the world should be happy if I could help it, I slipped in the body of the slipper a little line or so that I had written when you did not see, when I was in the other room.

'Twas that took the place of Van Zandt's message, after all! Monsieur, it was fate.

Van Zandt's letter, without plan, fell out on my table.

Your note, sent by plan, remained in the shoe!" "And what did it say?
Tell me at once." "Very little.