lish, crushing Barebone's
foot under the table.

CHAPTER XXII. DROPPING THE PILOT

"The portrait of a lady," repeated Loo, slowly. "Young and beautiful.
That much I remember."

The old nobleman had never removed his covering hand from the locket.
He had never glanced at it himself. He looked slowly round the peering
faces, two and three deep round the table. He was the oldest man
present--one of the oldest in Paris--one of the few now living who had
known Marie Antoinette.

Without uncovering the locket, he handed it to Barebone across the table
with a bow worthy of the old regime and his own historic name.

"It is right that you should be the first to see it," he said. "Since
there is no longer any doubt that the lady was your father's mother."

Loo took the locket, looked at it with strangely glittering eyes and
steady lips. He gave a sort of gasp, which all in the room heard. He
was handing it back to the Vicomte de Castel Aunet without a word of
comment, when a crashing fall on the bare floor startled every one. A
lady had fainted.

"Thank God!" muttered Dormer Colville almost in Barebone's ear and
swayed against him. Barebone turned and looked into a face grey and
haggard, and shining with perspiration. Instinctively he grasped him by
the arm and supported him. In the confusion of the moment no one noticed
Colville; for all were pressing round the prostrate lady. And in a
moment Colville was himself again, though the ready smile sat oddly on
such white lips.

"For God's sake be careful," he said, and turned away, handkerchief in
hand.

For the moment the portrait was forgotten until the lady was on her feet
again, smiling reassurances and rubbing her elbow.

"It is nothing," she said, "nothing. My heart--that is all."

And she staggered to a chair with the reassuring smile frozen on her
face.

Then the portrait was passed from hand to hand in silence. It was
a miniature of Marie Antoinette, painted on ivory, which had turned
yellow. The colours were almost lost, but the face stood clearly enough.
It was the face of a young girl, long and narrow, with the hair drawn
straight up and dressed high and simply on the head without ornament.

"It is she," said one and another. "C'est bien elle."

"It was painted when she was newly a queen," commented the Vicomte de
Castel Aunet. "I have seen others like it, but not that one before."

Barebone stood apart and no one offered to approach him. Dormer