ush Delora away. A few feet in the background Louis was hovering.

"Ferdinand," I heard Delora repeat, "what are you doing here? Who is
this person? You know that you are not well enough to travel."

The older man looked at him with a slightly puzzled air. There was a
certain vacuity in his expression, for which one found it hard to
account.

"You!" he murmured, as though perplexed. "Why, this is not Paris,
Maurice!"

Louis had glided a little nearer to the table. My lady of the
turquoises half rose to her feet. Her blue eyes were fierce with
anger. She looked as though she would have struck Delora.

"You shall not take him away!" she cried. "Don't have anything to say
to them!" she added, bending downwards to her companion. "You are not
safe with any one else except me!"

Delora turned towards her with an angry exclamation.

"Madame," he said, "this gentleman is my relation, and he is ill. He
is certainly not in a condition to be travelling about the country
with--with you!"

Her self-control was beginning to evaporate. She addressed him
shrilly. People at the surrounding tables were beginning to observe
this unusual conversation.

"What, then?" she cried. "Is he not safer with me than you? How about
Henri--Henri who came over here because we had been deceived, he and
I,--poor Henri who died?"

"This," Delora muttered, "is your revenge, then!"

"It is my revenge, and I mean to have it," she answered, "This
afternoon you will see."

Louis advanced and bowed to the man who still sat at the table,
looking a little puzzled, and with his eyes still fixed upon Delora.

"Monsieur," he said, "shall I serve luncheon?"

There was an instant's pause. I fancied that I saw something pass
between Louis and Delora. The latter turned away with a little shrug
of the shoulders.

"Presently will be time," he said. "We will speak together, all three
of us, before you leave."

The woman struck the table with the palm of her hand.

"There is nothing which you need say!" she exclaimed. "It is
finished, this fine scheme of yours! See, he is here himself. This
afternoon we go to warn those whom you would rob!"

Once more that look flashed between Louis and Delora, and this time
there was borne in upon me the swift consciousness of what it might
mean. Delora returned to his place opposite Felicia. I bent across the
table to Lamartine.

"Lamartine," I said, "there was a man who came here once--a companion
of that woman-