s, with her face hidden in a lace veil, alone. She closed the door
behind her, but Raoul observed that she did not lock it. She passed
him. He did not even follow her with his eyes, for his eyes were fixed
on the door, which did not open again.

When the passage was once more deserted, he crossed it, opened the door
of the dressing-room, went in and shut the door. He found himself in
absolute darkness. The gas had been turned out.

"There is some one here!" said Raoul, with his back against the closed
door, in a quivering voice. "What are you hiding for?"

All was darkness and silence. Raoul heard only the sound of his own
breathing. He quite failed to see that the indiscretion of his conduct
was exceeding all bounds.

"You shan't leave this until I let you!" he exclaimed. "If you don't
answer, you are a coward! But I'll expose you!"

And he struck a match. The blaze lit up the room. There was no one in
the room! Raoul, first turning the key in the door, lit the gas-jets.
He went into the dressing-closet, opened the cupboards, hunted about,
felt the walls with his moist hands. Nothing!

"Look here!" he said, aloud. "Am I going mad?"

He stood for ten minutes listening to the gas flaring in the silence of
the empty room; lover though he was, he did not even think of stealing
a ribbon that would have given him the perfume of the woman he loved.
He went out, not knowing what he was doing nor where he was going. At
a given moment in his wayward progress, an icy draft struck him in the
face. He found himself at the bottom of a staircase, down which,
behind him, a procession of workmen were carrying a sort of stretcher,
covered with a white sheet.

"Which is the way out, please?" he asked of one of the men.

"Straight in front of you, the door is open. But let us pass."

Pointing to the stretcher, he asked mechanically: "What's that?"

The workmen answered:

"'That' is Joseph Buquet, who was found in the third cellar, hanging
between a farm-house and a scene from the ROI DE LAHORE."

He took off his hat, fell back to make room for the procession and went
out.

Chapter III The Mysterious Reason

During this time, the farewell ceremony was taking place. I have
already said that this magnificent function was being given on the
occasion of the retirement of M. Debienne and M. Poligny, who had
determined to "die game," as we say nowadays. They had been assisted
in the realization of the