A distant clock booms out eleven strokes.

Lou Arnaud raises his head. Then noiselessly he slides out of bed on the
chill wooden boarding. As in a trance he crosses the room, seizes
charcoal, and feverishly works at the blank canvas on the easel.

For twenty minutes his hand never falters, then the charcoal drops from
his nerveless fingers! Groping his way with half-closed eyes back to the
bed, he falls again into a heavy, dreamless slumber.

* * * * *

The early morning sun chases away the raindrops of the night before.
Signs of activity are abroad in the inn; the swish of brooms; the noisy
clatter of pails. A warm aroma of coffee floats up the stairs and under
the door of number fourteen, awaking Arnaud to pleasant thoughts of
breakfast. He is partly dressed before his eye lights on the canvas he
had prepared.

"_Nom de Dieu!_"

He falls back against the wall, staring stupefied at the picture before
him. It is the picture of a girl, crouching in a kneeling position, all
the agony of death showing clearly in her upturned eyes. At her throat,
cruelly, relentlessly doing their murderous work, are a pair of
hands--ugly, podgy hands, but with what power behind them!

The face is the face of Jehane--a distorted, terrified Jehane! Arnaud
recoils, covering his eyes with his hands. Who could have drawn this
unspeakable thing? He looks again closely; the style is his own! There
is no mistaking those bold, black lines, that peculiar way of indicating
muscle beneath the tightly stretched skin--it _is_ his own work!
Anywhere would he have known it!

A knock at the door! Jean Potin enters, radiating cheerfulness.

"Breakfast in your room, monsieur? We are busy this morning; I share in
the work. Permit me to move the table and the easel--_Sacre-bleu!_"

Suddenly his rosy lips grow stern. "This is Jehane. Did she sit for
you--and when? You only came last night. What devil's work is this?"

"That is what I would like to find out; I know no more about it than you
yourself. When I awoke this morning the picture was there!"

"Did you draw it?" suspiciously.

"Yes. At least, no! Yes, I suppose I did. But I----"

Potin clenches his fist: "I will have the truth from the girl herself!
There is something here I do not like!" Roughly he pushes past the
artist and mounts to Jehane's room.

She is not there, neither is she at her desk. Nor yet down in the
village. They search everywhere; there is