n found her things packed, and the two servants waiting. In a
few minutes they were driving to the station. She made Dominique take
the seat opposite.

"Well?" she asked him.

Dominique's eyebrows twitched, he smiled deprecatingly.

"M'mselle, Mr. Treffry told me to hold my tongue."

"But you can tell me, Dominique; Barbi can't understand."

"To you, then, M'mselle," said Dominique, as one who accepts his fate;
"to you, then, who will doubtless forget all that I shall tell you--my
master is not well; he has terrible pain here; he has a cough; he is not
well at all; not well at all."

A feeling of dismay seized on the girl.

"We were a caravan for all that night," Dominique resumed. "In the
morning by noon we ceased to be a caravan; Signor Harz took a mule path;
he will be in Italy--certainly in Italy. As for us, we stayed at San
Martino, and my master went to bed. It was time; I had much trouble with
his clothes, his legs were swollen. In the afternoon came a signor of
police, on horseback, red and hot; I persuaded him that we were at
Paneveggio, but as we were not, he came back angry--Mon Die! as angry as
a cat. It was not good to meet him--when he was with my master I was
outside. There was much noise. I do not know what passed, but at last
the signor came out through the door, and went away in a hurry."
Dominique's features were fixed in a sardonic grin; he rubbed the palm of
one hand with the finger of the other. "Mr. Treffry made me give him
whisky afterwards, and he had no money to pay the bill--that I know
because I paid it. Well, M'mselle, to-day he would be dressed and very
slowly we came as far as Auer; there he could do no more, so went to bed.
He is not well at all."

Christian was overwhelmed by forebodings; the rest of the journey was
made in silence, except when Barbi, a country girl, filled with the
delirium of railway travel, sighed: "Ach! gnadige Fraulein!" looking at
Christian with pleasant eyes.

At once, on arriving at the little hostel, Christian went to see her
uncle. His room was darkened, and smelt of beeswax.

"Ah! Chris," he said, "glad to see you."

In a blue flannel gown, with a rug over his feet, he was lying on a couch
lengthened artificially by chairs; the arm he reached out issued many
inches from its sleeve, and showed the corded veins of the wrist.
Christian, settling his pillows, looked anxiously into his eyes.

"I'm not quite the thing, Chris," said Mr. Tref