nowadays he never invited her to go with him.
Usually he rose at noon, after smoking many cigarettes in bed, ate his
luncheon, and went out, returning at any time between six and eight, ate
his dinner, often sulkily, and then at nine Carlier would call for him,
and the pair would be out till midnight.

She little guessed in what a queer, disreputable set the pair moved, and
that her husband was known in the Montmartre as "The American." She was
in ignorance, too, how Ralph, finding himself without funds, had gone to
the Belgian Baron--the secret agent of Germany--and offered him further
services, which had, however, been declined.

At first Ansell had been defiant and threatening, declaring that he
would expose the Baron to the police as a foreign spy. But the stout,
fair-moustached man who lived in the fine house standing in its own
spacious grounds out at Neuilly, on the other side of the Bois de
Boulogne, had merely smiled and invited him to carry out his threat.

"Do so, my friend," he laughed, "and you will quickly find yourself
arrested and extradited to England charged with murder. So if you value
your neck, it will, I think, be best for you to keep a still tongue.
There is the door. _Bon soir._"

And he had shown his visitor out.

At first Ansell, who took a walk alone in the Bois, vowed vengeance, but
a few hours later, after reflecting upon the whole of the grim
circumstances, had come to the conclusion that silence would be best.

Though he had endeavoured not to show it, he was already regretting
deeply that he had married. Had he been in better circumstances, Jean
might, he thought, have been induced to assist him in some of his
swindling operations, just as the wives of other men he knew had done. A
woman can so often succeed where a man fails. But as he was almost
without a sou, what could he do?

Truth to tell, both he and Carlier were in desperate straits.

Jean had been quick to notice the change in both men, but she had
remained in patience, making no remark, though the whole circumstances
puzzled her, and often she recollected how happy she had been at the
Maison Collette when she had lived at home, and Ralph, so smart and
gentlemanly, had called to see her each evening.

These and similar thoughts were passing through her mind, when suddenly
she was recalled to her present surroundings by Ralph's sudden entrance.

"Halloa!" he cried roughly. "Dinner ready?"

"It has been ready more than