, I ask you to observe that
this precious elopement took place from that very spot, and that in the
Chateau de la Hourmerie were staying those other unfortunates, now
abandoned to their fate by the selfish passion of Madame for her
cicerone turned paramour!"

It may be imagined that Amelie's scandalous declaration let loose Babel
once again in the office of the unhappy Commissary. Mrs. Dane-Vereker,
Turpin, Amelie, and Mr. Withershaw vociferated simultaneously and with
prolonged fervour. The patience of M. Lesueur came finally to an end.

"Silence!" he roared, banging the desk in frenzy. And then to the
attendant gendarmes, who, by now, numbered some twelve highly edified
stalwarts, he shouted an order for the instant incarceration of these
pestilent folk. Their fate should be decided on the morrow.

"As for you, Mademoiselle," he said to Amelie, "I know your type well,
and I ask you to note that I am indeed bound for La Hourmerie. I shall
not forget your story. Between this moment and to-morrow you will have
time to think of the various embellishments of which it is susceptible."

And he hurried from the room toward the outer door, followed by six
gendarmes, and, between two of them, the tramp, while from the office
they had left came a confused turmoil of bitter feminine insult, of
French official determination, of furious Anglo-Saxon protest. Baba, the
black dog, bundled in his master's wake.

* * * * *

On the terrace of the Chateau de la Hourmerie clustered a motley and
excited group. In the centre M. Lesueur, his face alight with the
satisfaction of a quest worthily fulfilled, gazed almost fondly at the
body of rescuers and rescued that bore witness to his triumph. First was
the tramp, impassive as ever, his whole bearing a slouch of uninterested
fatigue. By his side--unshaven, a little dusty, but otherwise no whit
the worse--stood the Professor and the Bureaucrat, salved from their
underground prison by the crowbars of the six muscular policemen who
formed at the present impressivejuncture a stolid back-drop to the scene.
Close by, also unshaven and weary-looking, but happy in the moment of
release, were a priest, a poet, and a nondescript young man of amiable
aspect and engaging mien, whose name was Peter Brown. M. Lesueur had
just completed his narrative of events at the Commissariat of Police.

"Good Lord!" said the Bureaucrat. "Fancy Mrs. Dane bolting with old
Turps!"

"I shall never write anothe