ed
panes was absorbed, not reflected, by raftered roof, panelled
walls, and Jacobean stair. But as he grew used to the gloom he
could distinguish Bernard's couch and the powerful prostrate
figure stretched out on it like a living bar. Bernard's arms
were crossed over his breast: his features were the colour of
stone: he might have been dead.

Lawrence was startled. But he could do no good now, and the
Frenchman was fidgeting at his bedroom door. Later . . .

Secure of privacy Gaston's decorum relaxed a trifle, for it was
clear to him that confidences must be at least tacitly exchanged:
M'sieur le captaine could not hope to keep him in the dark, there
never was an elopement yet of which valet and lady's maid were
not cognizant. Like Catherine, "You wish I pack for you, Sare?"
he asked in his lively imperfect English. He was naturally a
chatterbox and brimful of a Parisian's salted malice, even after
six years in the service of Captain Hyde, who did not encourage
his attendants to be communicative.

Lawrence was tearing off his accursed evening clothes. (All day
it had been the one drop of sweetness in his bitter cup that he
had borrowed Lucian's razor and shaved in Lucian's rooms.) "Get
me a tweed suit and boots."

Gaston frowned, wrinkling his nose: if M'sieur imagined that that
nose had no scent for an affair of gallantry--! But still he
persisted, even he, though the snub was a bitter pill: himself a
gallant man, could allow for jaded nerves. "You wish I pack,
yes?" he deprecated reticence by his insinuatingly sympathetic
tone.

"No," said Lawrence, tying his tie before a mirror. "I'm coming
back."

"'Ere? Back--so--'ere, m'sieur?"

"Yes, before tonight."

It was more than flesh and blood could stand. "Sir Clowes 'e say
no," remarked Gaston in a detached and nonchalant tone, as he
gathered up the garments which his master had strewn over the
floor. "'E verree angree. 'E say 'Zut! m'sieur le captaine est
parti!--il ne revient plus.'"

"Gaston." The Frenchman turned from the press in which he was
hanging up Lawrence's coat. "You're a perfect scamp, my man,"
Lawrence spoke over his shoulder as he ran through the contents
of a pocketbook, "and I should be sorry to think you were
attached to me. But your billet is comfortable, I believe: I pay
you jolly good wages, you steal pretty much what you like, and
you have the additional pleasure of reading all my letters. Now
listen: I'm coming back to