d a
corner, which gave me a clear look through the garden of the room we
had just left. Gaston was standing stock still, holding the scrap of
paper in his hand. He knew then who the masked visitors were. I walked
by the side of Francezka's chair, through the dark streets until we
came to the Hotel Kirkpatrick. Madame Villars lived close by, and we
parted with her first. She said good night, but made no comment on the
events of the evening. She was no fool, and saw that something had
happened, although she knew not what.

We passed through the small gate of the courtyard and around to the
private entrance, where Francezka dismissed the chairmen and I took
off my mask and domino. We were standing in a quiet little court at
one side of the great entrance. It was very still and dark, and the
stars, palpitating, and bright, and distant, seemed to be laughing at
the miseries of the poor mice, as Voltaire called them, hidden away in
the small holes of the immense building called the Universe.
Francezka, panting for breath, took off her mask. Her pale face and
her eyes, somber, but full of smoldering fire, were half shrouded in
the hood of her domino. In her black garb, and with a look of despair
upon her face, she was as far removed from that dazzling Francezka of
the former time as could well be imagined. I was not disposed to make
light of what she had seen and heard that night. Nothing is more
uncomfortable than to live with a mystery, and when that mystery is in
the person one should love best in the world, when it poisons all the
springs of joy and makes the things known best in life strange to one,
it is a very dreadful thing. Francezka spoke after a while.

"Do you wonder, Babache, that I am a miserable woman?"

And I said with perfect honesty in my heart:

"No, Madame. I do not wonder in the least."

She paused, and I supposed she was about to say something to me about
Gaston, when she uttered these words which remain forever in my heart,
which not one waking hour has failed to recall since she uttered
them:

"Babache, remember, when I am gone, that nobody in the world was ever
so good a friend to me as you. I speak not of lovers--Gaston was once
my lover."

She paused as if overcome, and then hurriedly vanished within the open
door.

Her words thrilled me with joy and pain. What did she mean by saying,
"When I am gone?" Who was more likely to live than Francezka? Why
should she be contemplating the end of a