hin, drizzly rain fell with unpleasant persistence,
like a damp mist, and the thin blouse which he wore soon became wet
through and clung hard and chilly to his shoulders.

It was close on midnight when at last he thought it best to give up
his watch and to go back to his lodgings for a few hours' sleep; but at
seven o'clock the next morning he was back again at his post.

The porte-cochere of his former lodging-house was not yet open; he
took up his stand close beside it. His woollen cap pulled well over his
forehead, the grime cleverly plastered on his hair and face, his lower
jaw thrust forward, his eyes looking lifeless and bleary, all gave him
an expression of sly villainy, whilst the short clay pipe struck at
a sharp angle in his mouth, his hands thrust into the pockets of his
ragged breeches, and his bare feet in the mud of the road, gave the
final touch to his representation of an out-of-work, ill-conditioned,
and supremely discontented loafer.

He had not very long to wait. Soon the porte-cochere of the house was
opened, and the concierge came out with his broom, making a show of
cleaning the pavement in front of the door. Five minutes later a lad,
whose clothes consisted entirely of rags, and whose feet and head were
bare, came rapidly up the street from the quay, and walked along looking
at the houses as he went, as if trying to decipher their number. The
cold grey dawn was just breaking, dreary and damp, as all the past days
had been. Blakeney watched the lad as he approached, the small, naked
feet falling noiselessly on the cobblestones of the road. When the boy
was quite close to him and to the house, Blakeney shifted his position
and took the pipe out of his mouth.

"Up early, my son!" he said gruffly.

"Yes," said the pale-faced little creature; "I have a message to deliver
at No. 9 Rue St. Germain l'Auxerrois. It must be somewhere near here."

"It is. You can give me the message."

"Oh, no, citizen!" said the lad, into whose pale, circled eyes a look of
terror had quickly appeared. "It is for one of the lodgers in No. 9. I
must give it to him."

With an instinct which he somehow felt could not err at this moment,
Blakeney knew that the message was one from Armand to himself; a written
message, too, since--instinctively when he spoke--the boy clutched at
his thin shirt, as if trying to guard something precious that had been
entrusted to him.

"I will deliver the message myself, sonny," said Bla