as a clumsy lout, he found little difficulty in worming the
transactions of the night before out of one of the guard off duty. A
drink or two together at the sign of the "Yellow Flagon" fetched this
information.

Jerome was much wearied through his long watching and anxiety when he
returned to the Austrian Arms. The hostler at the inn turned him aside
from the front door by a gesture, so that he entered by another way.
Claude acquainted him that a lady in the public room desired to speak
with M. Jerome de Greville, and would not be denied. Jerome's custom
with visitors was to see them first himself, before Claude told them
whether he was in or no.

Peeping through an aperture he saw the lady walking impatiently up and
down the room, tapping at the window, mending the fire, and expressing
her haste in many other pettish manners so truly feminine. It was
Florine. He knew the girl well from his frequenting Bertrand's during
this piece of business. Jerome sent her word he would be in, and
changing his costume to one he usually wore, presented himself before
her in the public room.

"Is it I you seek, M. de Greville, Mademoiselle?" he inquired, politely.

"Oh! Monsieur de Greville, it is you; I'm so glad." She came forward
with a pretty air of perplexity and surprise, for Florine had a dainty
woman's way about her, showing even through her present trouble. She
bore herself more steadily that she had not to deal with some
severe-faced stranger, but a gallant gentleman, whose mien was not that
from which timid maidens were prone to fly.

"Oh, Monsieur de Greville, I know not what to say, now that I am well
met with you."

"And by my faith, Mademoiselle, I am sure no word of mine would grace
those pretty lips as well as thine own sweet syllables. So _I_ can not
tell you what to say."

Florine pouted her dissent, yet was not in earnest angered--she was a
woman. Jerome saw her business lay deeper than mere jest and badinage,
so he spoke her more seriously.

"I pray you Mademoiselle--Florine?--am I right? Be seated."

Florine had no thought for gallantries; she declined the proffered
seat, and, standing, proceeded at once to the point of her mission.

"There is a young gentleman in our house," and she blushed a little,
Jerome declared to me afterwards, "in Bertrand's wine room--you know
the place? locked up, and I am not certain whether he lives or is dead.
I can not tell Monsieur his name, but you know him