re, Clotilde," he said at last, "you will copy this note. Ramond
would never be able to decipher my diabolical writing."

And he crossed the room and laid the paper beside the young girl, who
stood working at a high desk in the embrasure of the window to the
right.

"Very well, master," she answered.

She did not even turn round, so engrossed was her attention with the
pastel which she was at the moment rapidly sketching in with broad
strokes of the crayon. Near her in a vase bloomed a stalk of hollyhocks
of a singular shade of violet, striped with yellow. But the profile
of her small round head, with its short, fair hair, was clearly
distinguishable; an exquisite and serious profile, the straight forehead
contracted in a frown of attention, the eyes of an azure blue, the nose
delicately molded, the chin firm. Her bent neck, especially, of a milky
whiteness, looked adorably youthful under the gold of the clustering
curls. In her long black blouse she seemed very tall, with her slight
figure, slender throat, and flexible form, the flexible slenderness
of the divine figures of the Renaissance. In spite of her twenty-five
years, she still retained a childlike air and looked hardly eighteen.

"And," resumed the doctor, "you will arrange the press a little. Nothing
can be found there any longer."

"Very well, master," she repeated, without raising her head;
"presently."

Pascal had turned round to seat himself at his desk, at the other end
of the room, before the window to the left. It was a plain black wooden
table, and was littered also with papers and pamphlets of all sorts. And
silence again reigned in the peaceful semi-obscurity, contrasting with
the overpowering glare outside. The vast apartment, a dozen meters long
and six wide, had, in addition to the press, only two bookcases, filled
with books. Antique chairs of various kinds stood around in disorder,
while for sole adornment, along the walls, hung with an old _salon_
Empire paper of a rose pattern, were nailed pastels of flowers of
strange coloring dimly visible. The woodwork of three folding-doors,
the door opening on the hall and two others at opposite ends of the
apartment, the one leading to the doctor's room, the other to that of
the young girl, as well as the cornice of the smoke-darkened ceiling,
dated from the time of Louis XV.

An hour passed without a sound, without a breath. Then Pascal, who, as
a diversion from his work, had opened a newspaper-