am used to carrying it," and though
my voice did not betray me, I proposed to continue to carry it. It was
at least a protection against a walking stick with a silver top. My mind
being still occupied with his suspicions, his inquiries, and most of all
his persistence that I should visit his house, with no other object in
view than a whiskey and siphon and a string of plovers. And yet, despite
the gruesomeness of the surroundings, while alert as to his slightest
move, I was determined to see the adventure through.

He did not insist, but turned sharply to the left, and the next instant
I stood before the threshold of a low stone house with a new tiled roof.
A squat, snug house, the eaves of whose steep gabled roof came down well
over its two stories, like the snuffer on a candle. He stepped to the
threshold, felt about the door as if in search for a latch, and rapped
three times with the flat of his hand. Then he called softly:

"Lea!"

"_C'est toi?_" came in answer, and a small hand cautiously opened a
heavy overhead shutter, back of which a shaded lamp was burning.

"Yes, it is all right, it is I," said he. "Come down! I have a surprise
for you. I have captured an American."

There came the sound of tripping feet, the quick drawing of a heavy
bolt, and the door opened.

My little lady of the Pre Catelan!

Not in a tea-gown from the Rue de la Paix--nothing of that kind
whatever; not a ruffle, not a jewel--but clothed in the well-worn
garment of a fisher girl of the coast--a coarse homespun chemise of
linen, open at the throat, and a still coarser petticoat of blue, faded
by the salt sea--a fisher girl's petticoat that stopped at her knees,
showing her trim bare legs and the white insteps of her little feet,
incased in a pair of heelless felt slippers.

For the second time I was treated to a surprise. Really, Pont du Sable
was not so dead a village after all.

Emile was wrong. She was one of my village people.

My host did not notice my astonishment, but waved his hand courteously.

"_Entrez_, monsieur!" he cried with a laugh, and then, turning sharply,
he closed the door and bolted it.

I looked about me.

We were in a rough little room, that would have won any hunter's heart;
there were solid racks, heavy with guns, on the walls, a snapping wood
fire, and a clean table, laid for dinner, and lastly, the chair quickly
drawn to it for the waiting guest. This last they laughingly forced me
into, for they b