in connection with that affair that I'm
here.'

'I also--' Hugo began.

'I may tell you at once,' Darcy proceeded with increasing
self-consciousness, 'that when I had the pleasure of meeting you before,
Mr. Hugo, I was forced by circumstances, and by my promise to a dead
friend, to behave in a manner which was very distasteful to me. I was
obliged to lie to you, to play a trick on you--in short--well, I can
only ask you for your sympathy. I have a kind of a forlorn notion that
you'll understand--after I've explained, as I mean to do--'

'If you refer to the pretended death of Tudor's wife--' said Hugo.

'Then you know?' Darcy cried, astounded.

'I know. I know everything, or nearly everything.'

'How?' Darcy retreated towards the piano.

'I will explain how some other time,' Hugo replied, going also to the
piano and facing his guest. 'You did magnificently that night, doctor.
Don't imagine for a moment that my feelings towards you in regard to
that disastrous evening are anything but those of admiration. And now
tell me about her--about _her_. She is well?'

Hugo put a hand on the man's shoulder, and persuaded him back to his
chair.

'She is well--I hope and believe,' answered Darcy.

'You don't see her often?'

'On the contrary, I see her every day, nearly.'

'But if she lives at Bruges and you are in Paris--'

'Bruges?'

'Yes; Place Saint-Etienne.'

Darcy thought for a second.

'So it's _you_ who have been on the track,' he murmured.

Hugo, too, became meditative in his turn.

'I wish you would tell me all that happened since--since that night,' he
said at length.

'I ask nothing better,' said Darcy. 'Since Ravengar is dead and all
danger passed, there is no reason why you should not know everything
that is to be known. Well, Mr. Hugo, I have had an infinity of trouble
with that girl.'

Hugo's expression gave pause to the doctor.

'I mean with Mrs. Tudor,' he added correctively. 'I'll begin at the
beginning. After the disappearance--the typhoid disappearance, you
know--she went to Algiers. Tudor had taken a villa at Mustapha
Superieure, the healthiest suburb of the town. After Tudor's sudden
death I telegraphed to her to come back to me in Paris. I couldn't bring
myself to wire that Tudor was dead. I only said he was ill. And at first
she wouldn't come. She thought it was a ruse of Ravengar's. She thought
Ravengar had discovered her hiding-place, and all sorts of things.
However, in the en