o much or took to drugs. These old retired soldiers who've seen hard
fighting in the South often turn that way."

"Did he leave a widow and children?" Max went on, his throat rather dry.

"That I can't tell you, sir; but Delatour's successor might know. I
could send there, if----"

"Thank you. I'll go myself," said Max.

The concierge advised a cab, although there was of course the tram which
would take him close to the Hotel Schreiber, and then he could inquire
his way. Max chose the tram. He had thought it not unfair to pay the
expenses of his quest for the Doran heiress with Doran money, since he
had little left that he could call his own. But he had not spent an
extra dollar on luxuries; and after a journey from New York to Paris,
Paris to Algiers, second-class, a tram as a climax seemed more suitable
than a cab.

Where the Arab town--old and secret, and glimmering pale as a whited
sepulchre--huddled away from contact with Europe, a narrow street ran
like a bridge connecting West with East, to-day with yesterday. Near the
entrance to this street, where it started from a fine open _place_ of
great shops and cafes, the Hotel Schreiber stood humbly squeezed in
between two dull buildings as shabby as itself.

"In a few minutes I shall know," Max said to himself, as he walked into
a cheaply tiled, dingy hall, smelling of cabbage-soup and beer.

Commercial travellers' sample boxes and trunks were piled in the dim
corners, and a fat, white little man behind a window labelled "Bureau"
glanced up from some calculations, with keen interest in a traveller who
for once looked uncommercial.

His eyes glazed again when he understood that Monsieur wished only to
make inquiries, not to engage a room. He was civil, however, and glib in
French with a South-German accent. Madame Delatour had sold her interest
in the hotel to him, Anton Schreiber. Unfortunately there had been a
mortgage. The widow was left badly off, and broken-hearted at her
husband's death. With what little money she had, she had gone to Oran,
and through official influence had obtained a concession for a small
tobacconist business, selling also postcards and stamps. She ought to
have done well, for there were many soldiers in Oran. They all wanted
tobacco for themselves and postcards for their friends. But Madame lost
interest in life when she lost Delatour--a fine fellow, well spoken of,
though never strong since some fever he had contracted in the far Sout