d with purple
lilac. But there was a general air of untidiness about the room; for
strewn over the chairs and tables were numerous small articles of dress
and the toilet-hairpins, a veil, a hat and a skirt--all traces of her
intimate presence.

As she lifted the lamp from the writing-table to place it on the square
table before the sofa, Madeleine called her attention to a folded paper
that had lain beneath it.

"It seems to be a letter for you."

She caught at it with a kind of avidity, tore it open, and heedless of
their presence, devoured it, not only with her eyes: but with her
parted lips and eager hands. When she looked up again, her cheeks had a
tinge of colour in them; her eyes shone like faceted jewels; her smile
was radiant and infectious. With no regard for appearances, she
buttoned the note in the bosom of her dress.

"Now we will look for the purse," she said. "But come in, Mr.
Guest--you are still standing at the door. I shall think you are
offended with me. Oh, how hot the room is!--and the lilac is stifling.
First the windows open! And then this scarf off, and some more light.
You will help me to look, will you not?"

It was to Maurice she spoke, with a childlike upturning of her face to
his--an irresistibly confiding gesture. She disappeared behind the
screen, and came out bareheaded, nestling with both hands at the coil
of hair on her neck. Then she lit two candles that stood on the piano
in brass candlesticks, and Maurice lighted her round the room, while
she searched in likely and unlikely places--inside the piano, in empty
vases, in the folds of the curtains--laughing at herself as she did so,
until Madeleine said that this was only nonsense, and came after them
herself. When Maurice held the candle above the writing-table, he
lighted three large photographs of Schilsky, one more dandified than
the other; and he was obliged to raise his other hand to steady the
candlestick.

At last, following a hint from Madeleine, they discovered the purse
between the back of the sofa and the seat; and now Louise remembered
that it had been in the pocket of her dressing-gown that afternoon.

"How stupid of me! I might have known," she said contritely. "So many
things have gone down there in their day. Once a silver hair-brush that
I was fond of; and I sometimes look there when bangles or hat-pins are
missing," and letting her eyes dance at Maurice, she threw back her
head and laughed.

Here, however, an