n_. The whole day passed without Lissac's
seeing any other faces than those of his turnkeys, and these men were
almost mutes. Then his irritation was renewed. He turned his useless
anger against himself, as he could not insult the walls.

Night came round, and spite of himself, he slept for a short time on the
wretched prison pallet. He began to find the facetious affair too
prolonged and too gloomy. They took him just in time, the second day
after his arrest, before a kind of magistrate or police judge, who,
after having reminded him that the law was clear in respect of the
wearing of foreign orders, announced that the matter was settled by a
decree of _nolle prosequi_.

"That is to say," said Lissac, in anger, "that two nights passed in
close confinement is regarded as ample punishment? If I am guilty of a
crime, I deserve much more than that. But, if only a mere peccadillo is
attributable to me, I consider it too much; and I swear to you that I
intend, in my turn, to summon to justice for illegal arrest--"

"Keep quiet," curtly interrupted the magistrate. "That is the best thing
you can do!"

Lissac, meantime, felt a sort of physical delight in leaving those cold
passages and that stone dwelling.

The fresh breeze of a gray November day appeared to him to be as gentle
as in spring. It seemed that he had lived in that den for weeks. He
flung himself into a carriage, had himself driven home, and was received
by his concierge with stupefied amazement.

"You, monsieur?" he said. "Already!"

This _already_ was pregnant with suggestiveness, and puzzled Lissac. The
rumor had, in fact, spread throughout the quarter, and probably the
porter had helped it along--that Guy had been arrested for complicity in
some political intrigue, though of what nature was unknown.
Nevertheless, the previous evening, the agents of police had come to the
apartments in Rue d'Aumale and had searched everything, moved, tried and
probed everything. Evidently they were in quest of papers.

"Papers?" cried Lissac. "Her letter, _parbleu!_"

He was no longer in doubt. The delicate, dreaded hand of Marianne was at
the bottom of all that. She had made some bargain with Monsieur
Jouvenet, as between a woman and a debauchee! The Prefect of Police was
not the loser: Marianne Kayser had the wherewithal to satisfy him.

"The miserable wench!" Lissac repeated as he went up to his apartment.

He rang and his servant appeared, looking as bewildered a