tily imitated the action on her own short upper lip.

"I know him," declared Crewe with a smile. "His name is Rolfe. There
should be nothing about him to alarm you, mademoiselle. Why, he is quite
a ladies' man."

Gabrielle shrugged her shoulders disdainfully.

"That may be," she replied; "but I like him not, and I do not wish him to
worry Madame Holymead."

"But why not let him see Mrs. Holymead?" suggested Crewe, after a short
pause. "As he only wants to ask her a few short questions, it seems to me
that would be the quickest way out of the difficulty, and would save you
all the trouble and worry you speak of."

"I tell you I will not," declared Gabrielle vehemently. "I will not have
Madame Holymead worried and made ill with the terrible ordeal. Bah! What
do you men--so clumsy--know of the delicate feelings of a lady like
Madame Holymead? The least soupcon of excitement and she is disturbed,
distraite, for days. After last night--after the visit of the police
agent--she was quite hysterical."

"Why should she be when she had nothing to be afraid of?" rejoined Crewe.

He spoke in a tone of simple wonder, but Gabrielle shot a quick glance
at him from under her veiled lashes as she replied:

"Bah! What has that to do with it? I repeat: Monsieur Crewe, you men
cannot understand the feelings of a lady like Madame Holymead in a matter
like this. She and her husband were, as I have said before, _intime_ with
the great judge. They visited his house, they dined with him, they met
him in Society. Behold, he is brutally, horribly killed. Madame, when she
hears the terrible news, is ill for days; she cannot eat, she cannot
sleep; she can interest herself in nothing. She is forgetting a little
when the police agents they catch a man and say he is the murderer. Then
comes the trial of this man at the court with so queer a name--Old
Bailee. The papers are full of the terrible story again; of the dead man;
how he looked killed; how he lay in a pool of blood; how they cut him
open! Madame Holymead cannot pick up a paper without seeing these things,
and she falls ill again. Then the jury say the man the police agents
caught is not the murderer. He goes free, and once more the talk dies
away. Madame Holymead once more begins to forget, when this police agent
comes to her house to remind her once more all about it. It is too cruel,
monsieur, it is too cruel!"

Gabrielle's voice vibrated with indignation as she concluded, and Crew