carpet, remained
still remnants of black tinder. I felt suddenly tired, worn out. I
flung myself, dressed as I was, upon the bed, and lay there in a sort
of stupor. And the slow, dark hours of that terrible night of
depression tramped over me with leaden footsteps.

CHAPTER V.

The next morning, just as I had dropped into an uneasy doze, there came
a knocking and a hammering, and a muttering outside my door.

"M'sieur! M'sieur!" Tap-tap-tap. "Que diable donc! Qu'il dort! M'sieur!
Profondement! Est ce qu'il est mort? Ah! c'est une bete Anglaise!"
Tap-tap-tap.

All this came through the wall in a hazy sort of confusion, mingling
with my sleep, before it roused me to go and open the door. Finally,
however, I stumbled off the bed and unlocked the door, and threw it
open.

"What now" I thought. "Have I broken any more of your confounded Gallic
regulations."

It was not a Commissary of Police this time, but a uniformed
commissionaire, with a note in his hand. Possibly serenely unconscious
that I had heard his polite remarks outside, he bowed urbanely.

"Bonjour, M'sieur! A thousand apologies for disturbing M'sieur! But
Madame said I was to deliver this note personally."

I looked at him with elevated eyebrows. I knew no Madame in Paris.

"I think there is some mistake," I said.

"But why? Monsieur Eeltone? Numero quinze, is it not?"

"Hilton. Yes, that is my name."

He gave me a triumphant glance, and handed me the note with a flourish.
The envelope was that of the Grand Hotel; but the writing on it was
Lucia's writing. Lucia here in Paris! Close to me! How? Why? The blood
poured over my face. With a sense of delight I tore the envelope open:--

"I am at the above hotel. I shall remain at home all to-day in the hope
that you may be able to come and see me." "LUCIA."

I looked up the man in the doorway bowed with a deprecating air.

"Madame said I was to wait for an answer."

He had a subdued smile upon his face, which seemed to say--"We know all
about these little notes! We are accustomed to them here in Paris!"

I told him to enter, and he followed me into the room and took an
interested glance round. Probably, to his view, my pallid face and
blood-shot eyes, my last night's clothes, my boots on my feet, and the
bed unslept-in, conveyed the idea of a drunken fit only just over in
time to make room for the morning's intrigue. A young, beautiful
English madame--for the title Miss is barely recogni