failure of our purpose. I, too, had my moral
limitations.

We lost a day, but on the following night there was such a storm as
satisfied us to the full.

XII

About eight o'clock we drove to a little restaurant in the Bois de
Boulogne, dined quietly, and about nine set out on foot to walk to the
villa. There was a brief lull in the storm, but very soon the rain
fell again heavily, and as, of course, we took no umbrellas, we were
soon wet to the skin.

Making sure that we were not followed, we approached the garden
cautiously through the wood, the rain falling in torrents. At the edge
of the forest, near a well known fountain, beyond the house, we met by
appointment my man, Alphonse. He was dressed as an old woman and had
an empty basket on his arm. Together we moved through the wood and
shrubbery until we were opposite the side of the garden and about a
hundred feet from where the wall turned at a right angle.

Here, facing an avenue, the wall was broken midway by the arch of the
entrance gateway. The wind blew toward us, and we could hear now and
then the sound of voices.

Alphonse said: "Two; there are two at the gate."

"Hush," said I, as a man came around the angle and along the narrow
way between us and the garden wall.

"Wait, monsieur; he will come again." In some ten minutes he
reappeared, as before.

"Now," said Merton, and in a pour of wildly driven rain Alphonse
disappeared. He found his way through the wood and in to the main
avenue, which in front of the gate turned to the left and passed
around the farther side of the grounds. Then he walked up to the gate.
Before long we heard words of complaint. Would the guards tell
her--This was all gleefully related afterward. She had lost her way.
Yes, a little glass of absinthe--only one. She was not used to it. And
she had the money for her market sales, and alas! so she was all wrong
and must go back. The guards laughed. No doubt it was the absinthe.
The old woman was reeling now and then. Wouldn't one of them show her
the way? No. And was it down the avenue? Yes. With this she set off
unsteadily along the road to the left. They called out that it was the
wrong way, and then, laughing, dismissed her.

When once around the remote angle of the wall, Alphonse slipped aside
into the forest, got rid of gown and basket, and moving through the
wood, took up his station on the side of the main avenue of approach
to the villa, and out of sight of the