ese several developments, Madame
Jolicoeur's debatings came to have in them--if I so may state the
trend of her mental activities--fewer bald heads and more moustaches;
and her never severely set purpose to abide in a loneliness relieved
only by the Shah de Perse was abandoned root and branch.

* * * * *

While Madame Jolicoeur continued her debatings--which, in their
modified form, manifestly were approaching her to conclusions--water was
running under bridges elsewhere.

In effect, her hesitancies produced a period of suspense that gave
opportunity for, and by the exasperating delay of it stimulated, the
resolution of the Notary's dark thoughts into darker deeds. With reason,
he did not accept at its face value Madame Jolicoeur's declaration
touching the permanent bestowal of her remnant affections; but he did
believe that there was enough in it to make the Shah de Perse a delaying
obstacle to his own acquisition of them. When obstacles got in this
gentleman's way it was his habit to kick them out of it--a habit that
had not been unduly stunted by half a lifetime of successful practice at
the criminal bar.

Because of his professional relations with them, Monsieur Peloux had an
extensive acquaintance among criminals of varying shades of
intensity--at times, in his dubious doings, they could be useful to
him--hidden away in the shadowy nooks and corners of the city; and he
also had his emissaries through whom they could be reached. All the
conditions thus standing attendant upon his convenience, it was a facile
matter for him to make an appointment with one of these disreputables
at a cabaret of bad record in the Quartier de la Tourette: a
region--bordering upon the north side of the Vieux Port--that is at once
the oldest and the foulest quarter of Marseille.

In going to keep this appointment--as was his habit on such occasions,
in avoidance of possible spying upon his movements--he went deviously:
taking a cab to the Bassin de Carenage, as though some maritime matter
engaged him, and thence making the transit of the Vieux Port in a bateau
mouche. It was while crossing in the ferryboat that a sudden shuddering
beset him: as he perceived with horror--but without repentance--the pit
into which he descended. In his previous, always professional, meetings
with criminals his position had been that of unassailable dominance. In
his pending meeting--since he himself would be not only a cri