his stupefied satellite.

"Where are they?"

"They must have gone already. I filled the cab. Perhaps Monsieur Pujol
and madame have gone before to make arrangements."

"Where have they gone to?"

"In Perigueux there is nowhere to go to with baggage but the railway
station."

A decrepit vehicle with a gaudy linen canopy hove in sight. Mr.
Ducksmith hailed it as the last victims of the Flood must have hailed
the Ark. He sprang into it and drove to the station.

There, in the _salle d'attente_, he found Aristide mounting guard over
his wife's luggage. He hurled his immense bulk at his betrayer.

"You blackguard! Where is my wife?"

"Monsieur," said Aristide, puffing a cigarette, sublimely impudent and
debonair, "I decline to answer any questions. Your wife is no longer
your wife. You offered me a thousand pounds to take her away. I am
taking her away. I did not deign to disturb you for such a trifle as a
thousand pounds, but, since you are here----"

He smiled engagingly and held out his curved palm. Mr. Ducksmith foamed
at the corners of the small mouth that disappeared into the bloodhound
jowls.

"My wife!" he shouted. "If you don't want me to throw you down and
trample on you."

A band of loungers, railway officials, peasants, and other travellers
awaiting their trains, gathered round. As the altercation was conducted
in English, which they did not understand, they could only hope for the
commencement of physical hostilities.

"My dear sir," said Aristide, "I do not understand you. For twenty years
you hold an innocent and virtuous woman under an infamous suspicion. She
meets a sympathetic soul, and you come across her pouring into his ear
the love and despair of a lifetime. You have more suspicion. You tell me
you will give me a thousand pounds to go away with her. I take you at
your word. And now you want to stamp on me. _Ma foi!_ it is not
reasonable."

Mr. Ducksmith seized him by the lapels of his coat. A gasp of
expectation went round the crowd. But Aristide recognized an agonized
appeal in the eyes now bloodshot.

"My wife!" he said hoarsely. "I want my wife. I can't live without her.
Give her back to me. Where is she?"

"You had better search the station," said Aristide.

The heavy man unconsciously shook him in his powerful grasp, as a child
might shake a doll.

"Give her to me! Give her to me, I say! She won't regret it."

[Illustration: MR. DUCKSMITH SEIZED HIM BY THE LAPELS OF HIS COA