"Death is my bedfellow," he continued. "Death is by my side like my own shadow. In straits like mine, the uses of chicanery are past. I come of a family of English gentlemen, even as you, Hardross Courage. We are of the same order, and I speak to you man to man, with the dew of death upon my lips. You will listen?"
"Yes!" I answered, "I will listen!"
"You will believe?"
"Yes!" I answered, "I will believe!"
He drew a breath of relief. A wonderful change lightened his face.
"Diplomacy demanded a victim," he said, "and I never flinched. Two men knew the truth, and they are dead. My scheme was a bold one. If it had succeeded, it would have meant an alliance with Germany, an absolute incontrovertible alliance and an imperishable peace. France and Russia would have been powerless—the balance of strength, of accessible strength, must always have been with us. Every German statesman of note was with me. The falsehood, the vilely egotistic ambition of one man, chock-full to the lips with personal jealousy, a madman posing as a genius, wrecked all my plans. My life's work went for nothing. We escaped disaster by a miracle and my name is written in the pages of history as a scheming spy—I who narrowly escaped the greatest diplomatic triumph of all ages. That is the epitome of my career. You believe me?"
"I must," I answered.
"I was reported to have committed suicide," he continued. "Nothing was ever farther from my thoughts."
I followed an ancient maxim. I sought safety in the shadow of the enemy.
I went to Berlin."
"The man who foiled you—" I said slowly.