l for whose benefit it was assumed.

"I begged her to remain in Paris."

"Ah!" and he gave a significant laugh. "However--so long as she is not
here."

He was a white-faced man, who looked as if he had been dried up by
some blanching process. One could imagine that the heart inside him
was white also. In his own eyes it was evident that he was a vastly
clever man. I thought him rather an ass.

"You know, gentlemen," he said, as he prepared his papers, "the
recognition of the body is a mere formality."

"Then let us omit it, Monsieur le Prefet," exclaimed Alphonse, with
characteristic cheerfulness; but the remark was treated with contempt.

"In July, gentlemen," went on the Prefet, "the Seine is warm--there
are eels--a hundred animalculae--a score of decomposing elements.
However, there are the clothes--the contents of Monsieur le Vicomte's
pockets--a signet ring. Shall we go? But first take another glass of
wine. If the nerves are sensitive--a few drops of Benedictine?"

"If I may have it in a claret glass," said Alphonse, and he launched
into a voluble explanation, to which the Prefet listened with a thin,
transparent smile. I thought that he would have been better pleased
had some of the Vicomte's titled friends come to observe this
formality. But one's grand friends are better kept for fine weather
only, and the official had to content himself with the company of a
private secretary and the son of a ruined financier.

Alphonse and I had no difficulty in recognizing the small belongings
which had been extracted from my old patron's sodden clothing. In the
letter case was a letter from myself on some small matter of business.
I pointed this out, and signed my name a second time on the yellow and
crinkled paper for the further satisfaction of the lawyer. Then we
passed into an inner room and stood in the presence of the dead man.
The recognition was, as the Prefet had said, a painful formality.
Alphonse Giraud and I swore to the clothing--indeed, the linen was
marked plainly enough--and we left the undertaker to his work.

Giraud looked at me with a dry smile when we stood in the fresh air
again.

"You and I, Howard," he said, "seem to have got on the seamy side of
life lately."

And during the journey I saw him shiver once or twice at the
recollection of what we had seen. His carriage was awaiting us at the
railway station. Alphonse had been brought up in a school where horses
and servants are treated as