n the river.

Duchemin moved out of the way of the miniature avalanche that followed,
and for some minutes stood reviewing with a truculent eye the face of
the hillside. But nothing moved thereon, it was quite bare of good
cover, little more than a slant of naked earth and shale, dotted
manywhere with boulders, cousins to that which sought his life--none,
however, so large. If human agency had moved it, the stone had come
from the high skyline of the hill; and by the time one could climb to
this last, Duchemin was sure, there would be nobody there to find.

The remainder of the afternoon was wasted utterly on the terrasse of
the Cafe de l'Univers, with the chateau ever in view, wishing it were
convenable to make one's duty call without more delay. But it wasn't;
not to wait a decent interval would be self-betraying, since Duchemin
had no longer any immediate intention of moving on from Nant; finally,
he rather hoped to get news at Millau that would strengthen a prayer to
Eve de Montalais to be sensible and remove her jewels to a place of
safe-keeping before it was too late.

Millau, however, disappointed. At the end of a twenty-mile walk on a
day of suffocating heat, Duchemin plodded wearily into the Hotel du
Commerce, engaged a room for the night, and was given a telegram from
London which rewarded decoding to some such effect as this:

"MONK AMERICAN INDEPENDENT MEANS GOOD REPUTE NO INFORMATION AS TO
OTHERS HAVE ASKED SURETE CONCERNING LORGNES WOULD GIVE SOMETHING TO
KNOW WHAT MISCHIEF YOU ARE MEDDLING WITH THIS TRIP AND WHY THE DEUCE
YOU MUST."

Few things are better calculated to curdle the milk of human kindness
than to find that one's fellow-man has meanly contrived to keep his
reputation fair when one is satisfied it should be otherwise. Duchemin
used bitter language in strict confidence with himself, disliked his
dinner and, after conscientiously loathing the sights of Millau for an
hour or two, sought his bed in the devil's own humour.

Though he waited till eleven of the following forenoon, there was no
supplementary telegram: London evidently meant him to understand that
the Surete in Paris had communicated nothing to the discredit of
Monsieur le Comte de Lorgnes and his consort.

Enquiry of the administration of the Hotel de Commerce elicited the
information that the Monk party had stopped there on the night of the
storm, doubled back in the morning to visit Montpellier-le-Vieux,
returning for midday