like an unskilled artist on the slack wire.

By-and-by Laurent set about his meal in a business-like fashion, and
Paul strolled quietly from the room. The others, juge and garde and
huissier and chemist, chief of gendarmerie, and all the rest of
the regular frequenters of the table, were called away by their own
avocations. Paul, sitting with his study-door ajar, looking as if
prepared to be absorbed in labour at any moment, watched them as they
went out by ones and twos, and knew that at last Laurent and Annette
were together. The heat of summer noon was in the air. The _place_ was
empty, and there was everywhere a humming silence through which his ear
discerned now and then the deeper hum of Laurent's voice. Not a word
was audible, or would have been even had Paul cared to play the
eavesdropper, but one might have thought that the doctor was preaching a
sermon.

'He's a wise old man, is Laurent,' said Paul to himself, 'and, for a
bachelor, he seems to have an uncommon good knowledge of women. That
comes out of a doctor's practice, I dare say.'

The heat of the day, the single glass of wine he had taken, and the
hearty meal he had eaten after his morning fast, all combined to make
him drowsy, and he had fallen into a half-slumber in which he saw hazily
the creatures of his fancy moving behind the footlights, when the door
of the dining-room opened, and he heard Laurent's words of farewell:

'Croyez moi, Madame Armstrong, c'est une affaire assez grave. Mais
courage, courage! Et--bon jour--et bonne esperance.'

Then the door closed, and the doctor's sturdy feet in their thick-soled
boots went echoing along the parquet, clattered for a moment on the
pavement outside, and were lost to hearing.

Paul woke with a numbness at the heart. The affair was serious; but
courage, and good hope! That sounded grave. He rose from his chair, the
pipe between his lips still sending up a spiral of blue smoke. He was
asking himself whether he should go in to the next apartment either
to comfort or to question, when the door of the _salle a manger_ again
opened, and Annette stole into his room. She pushed the door wide and
stood framed for an instant against the shadow of the corridor. She was
dressed in some filmy white stuff, with a great blue bow at the throat
and a bow of scarlet in her hair. She had an odd taste in contrasts,
but the Parisian touch was always evident in what she wore, and if
her scheme of personal adornment were