rp of crickets;
and I found all so peaceful that my mind went no further, and it was
only after some minutes that I recognized with a sharp return of terror,
that turned me sick, that I was still in the hall of the empty house.
That brought back other things, and with a shudder I carried my hand to
my throat and tried to rise. A hand put me back, and a dry voice said in
my ear, "Be easy, Monsieur Prosper, be easy. You are quite safe. But I
am afraid that in our haste we have put you to some inconvenience."

I looked with a wry face at the speaker, and recognized him for one of
those I had seen in the garden. He had the air of a secretary or--as he
stood rubbing his smooth chin and looking down at me with a saturnine
smile--of a physician. I read in his eyes something cold and not too
human, yet it went no further. His manner was suave, and his voice, when
he spoke again, as well calculated to reassure as his words were to
surprise me.

"You are better now?" he said. "Yes, then I have to congratulate you on
a strange chance. Few men, Monsieur Prosper, few men, believe me, were
ever so lucky. You were lately I think in the service of Monseigneur the
Bishop of Beauvais, President of her Majesty's Council?"

I fancied that a faint note of irony lurked in his words--particularly
as he recited my late master's titles. I kept silence.

"And yesterday were dismissed," he continued easily, disregarding my
astonishment. "Well, to-day you shall be reinstated--and rewarded. Your
business here, I believe, was to recover her Majesty's dog, and earn the
reward?"

I remembered that the wretch whose fingermarks were still on my throat
might be within hearing, and I tried to utter a denial.

He waved it aside politely. "Just so," he said. "But I know your mind,
better than you do yourself. Well, the dog is in that closet; and on two
conditions it is at your service."

Amazed before, I stared at him now, in a stupor of astonishment.

"You are surprised?" he said. "Yet the case is of the simplest. We stole
the dog, and now have our reasons for restoring it; but we cannot do so
without incurring suspicion. You, on the other hand, who are known to
the Bishop, and did not steal it, may safely restore it. I need not say
that we divide the reward; that is one of the two conditions."

"And the other?" I stammered.

"That you refresh your memory as to the past," he answered lightly. "If
I have the tale rightly, you saw a man convey a d