braced and kissed a couple of hours earlier!

"You will please stand quite still," said Madame, speaking the
slightly tinged Irish-English of her birth, "for if I shoot, le
Capitaine Rouille will be no more. See! Upon my dressing-table behind
you is a small vase supporting a rose. I will cut off its stem," She
quickly moved the pistol, and fired. "You may turn round." He obeyed,
and saw that the vase was unbroken, but that the rose, cut off at the
stem, lay upon the dressing-table. Behind it appeared a bullet-hole in
the plaster of the wall.

Madame flicked the spent cartridge off her counterpane, where it had
fallen upon ejection, and resumed. "I have rung the bell, and in a
moment there will be a most interested audience. You will then please
explain what brings you to my bedroom."

He had faced round towards her again, and his poor mind was a blank.
The situation was too big for him. He had fallen into a trap, but why
it had been set he could not guess. Who was this calmly capable,
straight-shooting widow who, with the copper hair falling over her
shoulders and streaming down the front of her dainty nightdress,
appeared in action even more lovely than in repose?

The first to arrive was Marie, then followed another _femme de
chambre_, then came the night porter, then the boot-collector, last,
with eyes opened wide at the surprising spectacle of a beautiful young
woman receiving her lover at the point of a pistol, appeared _monsieur
le patron_ himself. They clustered in a group by the door. "I think,"
said Madame serenely, "that we have enough. Marie, the house is full;
shut the door and lock it." The order was obeyed. "Now," went on the
commanding voice from the bed, using French for the effective shutting
out of the English boot-cleaner and night porter, "if you men will
turn your backs, and Marie will hand me my dressing-gown, I will
prepare myself for the examination of Monsieur le Capitaine Rouille.
It is not seemly that a court of inquiry should be conducted in a
nightdress."

The men turned round, or were pushed round. Marie--gasping with wonder
at the whole incredible business, so unlike that which she had
suggested--brought the silk dressing-gown and robed Madame, who
skipped out of bed for the purpose. Then the fair _juge
d'instruction,_ wrapped to the neck in blue silk, and looking prettier
than ever, propped herself upon the pillows and opened the court.

"Captain Rouille," ordered she in French, "p