adway against my companion's
taciturnity. However, I had little cause for complaint in another
direction. After the first quarter of an hour, and when we had left
the cobblestones of the city behind us, he drew a bundle of notes from
his pocket, and by the flickering light of the lanthorn he counted out
ten fifty-franc notes and handed them without another word to me.

The drive was unspeakably wearisome; but after a while I suppose that
the monotonous rumbling of the wheels and the incessant patter of the
rain against the window-panes lulled me into a kind of torpor. Certain
it is that presently--much sooner than I had anticipated--the chaise
drew up with a jerk, and I was roused to full consciousness by hearing
M. Berty's voice saying curtly:

"Here we are! Come with me!"

I was stiff, Sir, and I was shivering--not so much with cold as with
excitement. You will readily understand that all my faculties were now
on the qui vive. Somehow or other during the wearisome drive by the
side of my close-tongued companion my mind had fastened on the
certitude that my adventure of this night bore a close connexion to
the firm of Fournier Freres and to the English files which were
causing so many sleepless nights to M. le Duc d'Otrante, Minister of
Police.

But nothing in my manner, as I stepped out of the carriage under the
porch of the house which loomed dark and massive out of the
surrounding gloom, betrayed anything of what I felt. Outwardly I was
just a worthy bourgeois, an interpreter by profession, and delighted
at the remunerative work so opportunely put in my way.

The house itself appeared lonely as well as dark. M. Berty led the way
across a narrow passage, at the end of which there was a door which he
pushed open, saying in his usual abrupt manner: "Go in there and wait.
I'll send for you directly."

Then he closed the door on me, and I heard his footsteps recrossing
the corridor and presently ascending some stairs. I was left alone in
a small, sparsely furnished room, dimly lighted by an oil lamp which
hung down from the ceiling. There was a table in the middle of the
room, a square of carpet on the floor, and a couple of chairs beside a
small iron stove. I noticed that the single window was closely
shuttered and barred. I sat down and waited. At first the silence
around me was only broken by the pattering of the rain against the
shutters and the soughing of the wind down the iron chimney pipe, but
after a lit