by a servant. The Vicomte made no attempt to stop me.

"Here," he said, when the door was closed--and he handed Giraud the
key of his own study. "The doctors and--the others--have placed him in
my room--that is the key. You must consider this house as your own
until the funeral is over; your poor father's house, I know, is in
disorder."

Monsieur de Clericy would have it that the Baron should be buried from
the Rue des Palmiers, which Alphonse Giraud recognised as in some sort
an honour, for it proclaimed to the world the esteem in which the
upstart nobleman was held in high quarters.

"I am glad," said my patron, with that air of fatherliness which he
wore towards me from the first, "that you have telegraphed for my
wife--the house is different when she is in it. When can she be here?"

"It is just possible that she may be with us to-morrow at this
time--by driving rapidly to Toulon."

"With promptitude," muttered the Vicomte, musingly.

"Yes--such as one may expect from Madame."

The Vicomte looked up at me with a smile.

"Ah!--you have discovered that. One is never safe with you men who
know horses. You find out so much from observation."

But I think it is no great thing to have discovered that one may
usually look for prompt action in men and women of a quiet tongue.

Lucille's name was not mentioned between us. My own desires and
feelings had been pushed into the background by the events of the last
few days, and he is but half a man who cannot submit cheerfully to
such treatment at the hand of Fate from time to time.

During the day we learnt further details respecting the theft of the
money, amounting in all to rather more than eight hundred thousand
pounds of our coinage. Miste, it appeared, had been instructed to
leave Paris by the eight o'clock train that morning for London, taking
with him a large sum. The Vicomte had handed him the money the
previous evening.

"I carelessly replaced the remainder in the drawer of my
writing-table," my patron told us, "before the eyes of that scoundrel.
I went to the drawer this morning, having been uneasy about so large a
sum--it was arranged that I should see Miste off from the Gare du
Nord. Figure to yourselves! The drawer was empty. I hastened to the
railway station. Miste was, of course, not there."

And he rocked himself backwards and forwards in the chair. What
trouble men take for money--what trouble it brings them! So distressed
was he that it would