he third gentleman," said Bernstein. "I had forgotten him.
The third gentleman I knew well. He had often been here. It was he who
brought these friends to me. He was M. le Capitaine Stewart. Everybody
knows M. le Capitaine Stewart--everybody in Paris."

Again he observed that his visitor drew a little, swift, sharp breath,
and that he seemed to be laboring under some excitement.

However, Ste. Marie did not question him further, and so he went on to
tell the little more he knew of the matter--how the four people had
remained for an hour or more, trying many poses; how they had returned,
all but the tall gentleman, three days later to see the proofs and to
order certain ones to be printed (the young man paying on the spot in
advance), and how the finished prints had been sent to M. le Capitaine
Stewart's address.

When he had finished, his visitor sat for a long time silent, his head
bent a little, frowning upon the floor and chafing his hands together
over his knees. But at last he rose rather abruptly. He said:

"Thank you very much, indeed. You have done me a great service. If ever
I can repay it, command me. Thank you!"

The Jew protested, smiling, that he was still too deeply in debt to M.
Ste. Marie, and so, politely wrangling, they reached the door, and with
a last expression of gratitude the visitor departed down the stair. A
client came in just then for a sitting, and so the little photographer
did not have an opportunity to wonder over the rather odd affair as much
as he might have done. Indeed, in the press of work, it slipped from his
mind altogether.

But down in the busy boulevard Ste. Marie stood hesitating on the curb.
There were so many things to be done, in the light of these new
developments, that he did not know what to do first.

"Mlle. Coira O'Hara!--_Mademoiselle!_" The thought gave him a sudden
sting of inexplicable relief and pleasure. She would be O'Hara's
daughter, then. And the boy, Arthur Benham (there was no room for doubt
in the photographer's description) had seemed to be badly in love with
her. This was a new development, indeed! It wanted thought, reflection,
consultation with Richard Hartley. He signalled to a fiacre, and when it
had drawn up before him sprang into it and gave Richard Hartley's
address in the Avenue de l'Observatoire. But when they had gone a little
way he changed his mind and gave another address, one in the Boulevard
de la Tour Maubourg. It was where Mlle. Olga