illot staggering back as the revolver slipped
from his fingers on to the floor. Even his death cry was stifled. They
carried him away without any fuss, and Peter was just in time, after
all, to see the finish of the second act of the ballet. The sham
Monsieur Guillot still smirked at the sham Louise, but the box by his
side was empty.

"It is over?" Violet asked, breathlessly.

"It is over," Peter answered.

It was, after all, an unrecorded tragedy. In an obscure corner of
the morning papers one learned the next day that a Frenchman, who had
apparently come to the end of his means, had committed suicide in a
furnished flat of Shaftesbury Avenue. Two foreigners were deported
without having been brought up for trial, for being suspected persons.
A little languid interest was aroused at the inquest when one of
the witnesses deposed to the deceased's having been a famous French
criminal. Nothing further transpired, however, and the readers of the
halfpenny press for once were deprived of their sensation. For the rest,
Peter received, with much satisfaction, a remarkably handsome signet
ring, bearing some famous arms, and a telegram from Sogrange: "Well
done, Baron! May the successful termination of your enterprise nerve you
for the greater undertaking which is close at hand. I leave for London
by the night train. Sogrange."

CHAPTER IX. THE GHOSTS OF HAVANA HARBOR

"We may now," Sogrange remarked, buttoning up his ulster, and stretching
himself out to the full extent of his steamer chair, "consider ourselves
at sea. I trust, my friend, that you are feeling quite comfortable."

Peter, lying at his ease upon a neighboring chair, with a pillow behind
his head, a huge fur coat around his body, and a rug over his feet, had
all the appearance of being very comfortable indeed. His reply, however,
was a little short--almost peevish.

"I am comfortable enough for the present, thank you. Heaven knows how
long it will last!"

Sogrange waved his arms towards the great uneasy plain of blue sea, the
showers of foam leaping into the sunlight, away beyond the disappearing
coast of France.

"Last!" he repeated. "For eight days, I hope. Consider, my dear Baron!
What could be more refreshing, more stimulating to our jaded nerves than
this? Think of the December fogs you have left behind, the cold, driving
rain, the puddles in the street, the gray skies--London, in short, at
her ugliest and worst."

"That is all very well,"