mine and hide
them, and feet flat and heavy; a figure that is no figure, all its lines
pressed from within out of place and which shakes as she walks; a voice
whose whisper is raucous. Then, Monsieur, conceive this woman unaware of
her defects, who simpers and attempts to use her dull eyes in
fascination. That is Mademoiselle St. Clair."

"Surely you exaggerate?"

"No, it is a fair picture," said the friend, "and yet she has admirers.
Her fortune is as large as her person."

Barrington laughed. There could be small romance in the love story which
fate had called him to assist, and certainly he would have small
difficulty in finding Mademoiselle St. Clair.

"I will not trespass on your courtesy for an introduction to her,
Monsieur," he said, "and since the wine is finished, you will pardon us
if we retire. We have traveled far and are weary."

Monsieur le Comte looked at his companion when they had gone, and
smiled.

"A new experience for Beauvais," he said; "a man who has not the honor
of knowing Madame la Marquise and has not heard of the charms of
Mademoiselle her niece."

"The picture you drew was a little too repulsive, I think."

"She will be masked," was the laughing answer. "He must have his
invitation as promised. It will cost a few louis, and we are none too
rich. We are dealers in this matter, and must have some profit for our
labor."

"Monsieur le Comte, you are a genius," laughed his companion.

An hour later, Monsieur le Comte knocked softly at the door of
Barrington's room.

There was no answer.

He knocked louder.

"Monsieur, I have the invitation."

Still there was no answer.

"Parbleu, they sleep like the dead," he murmured, and went back to his
companion.

Seth lay like a log--in deep, dreamless sleep. It would take far more
than a mere knocking at the door to wake him. Barrington, deaf to the
knocking, deeply asleep too, was restless, turning and tossing with
dreams--nightmares. He was falling over one of the precipices which they
had passed on their way to Beauvais. He was imprisoned, almost
suffocated, in a little room; the walls seemed to gradually close in
upon him and then suddenly to open; he was ill, surely, for men were
about him, looking into his face and muttering together. Again, he was
in a crowd, a dancing, noisy crowd, searching for a great woman who
shook as she walked. It was madness to seek her here, they were all
pigmies, and he turned away; another moment the