on the threshold I stopped, and stood silent and amazed. At first I
thought the room was empty. Then, at a second glance, I saw the student.
He was on his knees beside the bed in the alcove, from which the curtain
had been partially dragged away. The curtain before the window had been
torn down also, and the cold light of day, pouring in on the unsightly
bareness of the room, struck a chill to my heart. A stool lay overturned
by the fire, and above it a grey cat, which I had not hitherto noticed,
crouched on a beam and eyed me with stealthy fierceness. Mademoiselle
was not to be seen, nor was Fanchette, and Simon Fleix did not hear me.
He was doing something at the bed--for my mother it seemed.

'What is it, man?' I cried softly, advancing on tiptoe to the bedside.
'Where are the others?'

The student looked round and saw me. His face was pale and gloomy. His
eyes burned, and yet there were tears in them, and on his cheeks. He did
not speak, but the chilliness, the bareness, the emptiness of the room
spoke for him, and my heart sank.

I took him by the shoulders. 'Find your tongue, man!' I said angrily.
'Where are they?'

He rose from his knees and stood staring at me. 'They are gone!' he said
stupidly.

'Gone?' I exclaimed. 'Impossible! When? Whither?'

'Half an hour ago. Whither--I do not know.'

Confounded and amazed, I glared at him between fear and rage. 'You do
not know?' I cried. 'They are gone, and you do not know?'

He turned suddenly on me and gripped my arm. 'No, I do not know! I do
not know!' he cried, with a complete change of manner and in a tone
of fierce excitement. 'Only, may the fiend go with them! But I do know
this. I know this, M. de Marsac, with whom they went, these friends of
yours! A fop came, a dolt, a fine spark, and gave them fine words and
fine speeches and a gold token, and, hey presto! they went, and forgot
you!'

'What!' I cried, beginning to understand, and snatching fiercely at the
one clue in his speech. 'A gold token? They have been decoyed away then!
There is no time to be lost. I must follow.'

'No, for that is not all!' he replied, interrupting me sternly, while
his grasp on my arm grew tighter and his eyes flashed as they looked
into mine. 'You have not heard all. They have gone with one who called
you an impostor, and a thief, and a beggar, and that to your mother's
face--and killed her! Killed her as surely as if he had taken a sword to
her, M. de Marsac! Will you,