solitary day depressed you?"

Selingman turned slowly around. Draconmeyer's eyes beneath his
gold-rimmed spectacles were bright. He was carrying himself with less
than his usual stoop, he wore a red carnation in his buttonhole. He was
in spirits which for him were almost boisterous.

"Have you been in there?" Selingman asked, in a low tone.

Draconmeyer glanced at the hotel and back again at his companion.

"In where?" he demanded. "In the hotel? I left Lady Hunterleys there a
short time ago. I have been up to the bank since."

"You don't know yet, then?"

"Know what?"

There was a momentary silence. Draconmeyer suddenly gripped his
companion by the arm.

"Go on," he insisted. "Tell me?"

"It's all over!" Selingman exclaimed hoarsely. "Jean Coulois came to me
a quarter of an hour ago. It is finished. Damnation, Draconmeyer, let go
my arm!"

Draconmeyer withdrew his fingers. There was no longer any stoop about
him at all. He stood tall and straight, his lips parted, his face turned
upwards, upwards as though he would gaze over the roof of the hotel
before which they were standing, up to the skies.

"My God, Selingman!" he cried. "My God!"

The seconds passed. Then Draconmeyer suddenly took his companion by the
arm.

"Come," he said, "let us take that first seat in the gardens there. Let
us talk. Somehow or other, although I half counted upon this, I scarcely
believed.... Let us sit down. Do you think it is known yet?"

"Very likely not," Selingman answered, as they crossed the road and
entered the gardens. "Coulois found him in his rooms, seated at the
writing-table. It was all over, he declares, in ten seconds. He came to
me--with the knife. He was on his way to the mountains to hide it."

They found a seat under a drooping lime tree. They could still see the
hotel and the level stretch of road that led past the post-office and
the Club to Monaco. Draconmeyer sat with his eyes fixed upon the hotel,
through which streams of people were still passing. One of the
under-managers was welcoming the newcomers from a recently arrived
train.

"You are right," he murmured. "Nothing is known yet. Very likely
they will not know until the valet goes to lay out his clothes for
dinner.... Dead!"

Selingman, with one hand gripping the iron arm of the seat, watched his
companion's face with a sort of fascinated curiosity. There were beads
of perspiration upon Draconmeyer's forehead, but his expression, in its
way