s
trust in Providence, and expecting to hear that M. Grandissime had been
found dead in his bed.

"Because I saw him just now; he rode by on horseback. A man with that
noble face could never _do such a thing_!"

The astonished Clotilde looked at her mother searchingly. This sort of
speech about a Grandissime? But Aurora was the picture of innocence.

Clotilde uttered a derisive laugh.

"_Impertinente_!" exclaimed the other, laboring not to join in it.

"Ah-h-h!" cried Clotilde, in the same mood, "and what face had he when
he wrote that letter?"

"What face?"

"Yes, what face?"

"I do not know what face you mean," said Aurora.

"What face," repeated Clotilde, "had Monsieur Honore de Grandissime on
the day that he wrote--"

"Ah, f-fah!" cried Aurora, and turned away, "you don't know what you are
talking about! You make me wish sometimes that I were dead!"

Clotilde had gone and shut down the sash, as it began to rain hard and
blow. As she was turning away, her eye was attracted by an object at
a distance.

"What is it?" asked Aurora, from a seat before the fire.

"Nothing," said Clotilde, weary of the sensational,--"a man in the
rain."

It was the apothecary of the rue Royale, turning from that street toward
the rue Bourbon, and bowing his head against the swirling norther.

CHAPTER XXIII

FROWENFELD KEEPS HIS APPOINTMENT

Doctor Keene, his ill-humor slept off, lay in bed in a quiescent state
of great mental enjoyment. At times he would smile and close his eyes,
open them again and murmur to himself, and turn his head languidly and
smile again. And when the rain and wind, all tangled together, came
against the window with a whirl and a slap, his smile broadened almost
to laughter.

"He's in it," he murmured, "he's just reaching there. I would give fifty
dollars to see him when he first gets into the house and sees where
he is."

As this wish was finding expression on the lips of the little sick man,
Joseph Frowenfeld was making room on a narrow doorstep for the outward
opening of a pair of small batten doors, upon which he had knocked with
the vigorous haste of a man in the rain. As they parted, he hurriedly
helped them open, darted within, heedless of the odd black shape which
shuffled out of his way, wheeled and clapped them shut again, swung down
the bar and then turned, and with the good-natured face that properly
goes with a ducking, looked to see where he was.

One object--around