Colville
had gone toward the great fireplace, and was standing by himself there
with his back toward the room. He was surreptitiously wiping from his
face the perspiration which had suddenly run down it, as one may see the
rain running down the face of a statue.

Things had taken an unexpected turn. The Marquis de Gemosac, himself
always on the surface, had stirred others more deeply than he had
anticipated or could now understand. France has always been the victim
of her own emotions; aroused in the first instance half in idleness,
allowed to swell with a semi-restraining laugh, and then suddenly
sweeping and overwhelming. History tells of a hundred such crises in the
pilgrimage of the French people. A few more--and historians shall write
"Ichabod" across the most favoured land in Europe.

It is customary to relate that, after a crisis, those most concerned
in it know not how they faced it or what events succeeded it. "He never
knew," we are informed, "how he got through the rest of the evening."

Loo Barebone knew and remembered every incident, every glance. He was
in full possession of every faculty, and never had each been so keenly
alive to the necessity of the moment. Never had his quick brain been so
alert as it was during the rest of the evening. And those who had come
to the Hotel Gemosac to confirm their adoption of a figure-head went
away with the startling knowledge in their hearts that they had never
in the course of an artificial life met a man less suited to play that
undignified part.

And all the while, in the back of his mind, there lingered with a deadly
patience the desire for the moment which must inevitably come when he
should at last find himself alone, face to face, with Dormer Colville.

It was nearly midnight before this moment came. At last the latest guest
had taken his leave, quitting the house by the garden door and making
his way across that forlorn and weedy desert by the dim light reflected
from the clouds above. At last the Marquis de Gemosac had bidden them
good night, and they were left alone in the vast bedroom which a dozen
candles, in candelabras of silver blackened by damp and neglect, only
served to render more gloomy and mysterious.

In the confusion consequent on the departure of so many guests the
locket had been lost sight of, and Monsieur de Gemosac forgot to make
inquiry for it. It was in Barebone's pocket.

Colville put together with the toe of his boot the logs wh