id, "You heard it!" and then asked him what it was. He
answered that it was a pistol-shot, and he wanted to go back to see if
any dreadful thing had happened. But I shook my head and told him it
was one of five, each one taking place when the roar of the trains
going by was at the loudest. Then he said that this woman was
practising at a mark, and bade me look out or we should have a house
full of anarchists. At that, I loudly declared she should go the first
thing in the morning and so got rid of him. But I did not keep my word,
and for this reason: When I went to do her room-work as I always do
immediately after breakfast, I was all smiles and full of talk till I
had taken a good look at the walls for the bullet-holes I expected to
see there. But I didn't find any, and was puzzled enough you may be
sure, for those bullets must have gone somewhere and I was quite
certain that they had not been fired out of the window. I hardly
dared to look at the ceiling, for she was watching me and kept me
chatting and wondering till all of a sudden I noticed that one of the
sofa-pillows was missing from its place. This set me thinking, and I
was about to ask her what she had done with it when my attention was
drawn away by seeing among the scraps in the wastebasket I had lifted
to carry out the end and corner of what looked like a partly destroyed
photograph.

This was something too strange not to rouse any woman's curiosity, but
I was careful not to give it another glance till I was well out of the
room. Then, as you may believe, I drew it quickly out, to find that all
the middle part was gone--shot to pieces by those tearing bullets. Not
a particle of the face was to be seen, and only enough of the neck and
shoulders to show that it had been the portrait of a man. I enclose it
for you to see; and if you want to talk to the woman, she is still
here, though I only keep her in the hope of her being that Madame
Duclos for whom money is offered. I will tell you why I think this: Not
because of a torn skirt,--you see I have been looking over the
advertisement printed in the papers,--but because she is foreign and
dark and has a decidedly drooping eyelid. Then too, she halts a little
on one foot, as I noticed when I called her hurriedly to the window to
see something. If you want to have a look at her, come after five and
before seven; we are both in then.

Yours re