cast among convicts: sharing the isolation of his detested
master on Ile de Nou. When she demanded to know his affair--

"Official!" he snarled back, with his slit grin.

Indeed it must have been a rare errand for him: a rare jest. He affected
in his manner a gratified swagger of contempt: natural enough for a man
with whom the vilest felon would never willingly speak, you understand:
natural enough for one whose only dealing with his fellows was to valet
their shorn bodies on the scaffold and to gather their last poor trifles
of property for the executioner's wage--"robbing the basket," as we
say.

"What are you after?" persisted Mother Carron.

"Not you, old woman!" he retorted. "Not any of you," he added with
brutal assurance as his glance shifted past Bibi-Ri and myself. "But I
come to see ... Mam'zelle here. And Mam'zelle alone!"

Well, we had had warning, to be sure. From this welter of evil portents
some actual horror was due. And my faith, he wasted little time about
it! He passed us over as if we had been less than nothing. He removed
his ragged straw hat to twirl on his finger. He scraped low before the
calm-faced girl who still waited impassive on the stairs. And then and
there he delivered himself of the message he had been taught. All at
once. Even glibly. With a kind of damnable sputtering eloquence.

"Mam'zelle Zelie--at your service--I bring you this word from my master:
best respects and affections. He bids me say the civil ceremony will be
for to-morrow, as planned. But he mistrusts your clever aunt--who might
indeed try tricks to interfere. And so ... you see ... to-night:
straightway: will be the wedding, Mam'zelle!

"The priest is here. In me behold one happy witness! For the other--" He
grinned. "Perhaps Madame Carron will do." He thrust a thumb at Bibi-Ri.
"Or that young buck yonder. The master himself only delays his
impatience a few moments formally to arrive when all is ready. Safely
escorted, you can believe, in this place of so bad a reputation--from
which, moreover, he promises to remove you at once."

To see the rascal strut, and what airs he took!

"Meantime, Mam'zelle--in attending--please will you put on your best
frock and prepare yourself," he concluded. "And as your wedding gift ...
the master has pleasure to send you herewith the precious chains and
jewels in this box and asks you to wear them for his sake!"

Throughout this stupefying recital none of the rest of us stirred