and had become afraid of the consequences. Free! Monsieur Champeaux
indeed! Cowardice was a new development in his character. He had been
afraid to come. She drank the tea, but did not touch the toast or fruit.
There would be time enough for breakfast when she arrived in Paris. Her
hands trembled violently as she pinned on her hat, and she was not greatly
concerned as to the angle. She snatched up her purse and cloak, and sped
out into the street. A phaeton awaited her.

"The tram," she said.

"Yes, Mademoiselle."

"And go quickly." She would not feel safe until she was in the tram.

A face appeared at one of the windows. As the vehicle turned the corner,
the face vanished; and perhaps that particular visage disappeared forever.
A gray wig came off, the little gray side-whiskers, the bushy grey
eyebrows, revealing a clever face, not more than thirty, cunning, but
humorously cunning and anything but scoundrelly. The painted scar aslant
the nose was also obliterated. With haste the man thrust the evidences of
disguise into a traveling-bag, ran here and there through the rooms, all
bare and unfurnished save the one with the bars and the kitchen, which
contained two cots and some cooking utensils. Nothing of importance had
been left behind. He locked the door and ran all the way to the Place
d'Armes, catching the tram to Paris by a fraction of a minute.

All very well done. She would be in Paris before the police made any
definite move. The one thing that disturbed him was the thought of the
blockhead of a chauffeur, who had got drunk before his return from
Versailles. If he talked; well, he could say nothing beyond the fact that
he had deposited the singer at the house as directed. He knew positively
nothing.

The man laughed softly. A thousand francs apiece for him and Antoine, and
no possible chance of being discovered. Let the police find the house in
Versailles; let them trace whatever paths they found; the agent would tell
them, and honestly, that an aged man had rented the house for a month and
had paid him in advance. What more could the agent say? Only one bit of
puzzlement: why hadn't the blond stranger appeared? Who was he, in truth,
and what had been his game? All this waiting and wondering, and then a
curt telegram of the night before, saying, "Release her." So much the
better. What his employer's motives were did not interest him half so much
as the fact that he had a thousand francs in his pocket, and th