ehow cast a mystic contempt.

"There is a door there," said the heavy official, with a brusque return
of his early manner. "Come, what is that door?"

"That is a little room."

"Then open it."

"I cannot," returned Lisa. "It is locked."

"Aha!" said the man, with a laugh of much meaning. "On the inside, eh?"

He went to it, and banged on it with his fist.

"Come," he shouted, "open it and be done."

There was a short silence, during which those in the kitchen listened
breathlessly. A shuffling sound inside the door made the officer of the
law turn and beckon to his two men to come closer.

Then, after some fumbling, as of one in the dark, the door was unlocked
and slowly opened.

Papa Barlasch stood in a very primitive night-apparel within the door.
He had not done things by halves, for he was an old campaigner, and knew
that a thing half done is better left undone in times of war. He noted
the presence of Desiree and Lisa, but was not ashamed. The reason of it
was soon apparent. For Papa Barlasch was drunk, and the smell of drink
came out of his apartment in a warm wave.

"It is the soldier billeted in the house," explained Lisa, with a
half-hysterical laugh.

Then Barlasch harangued them in the language of intoxication. If he had
not spared Desiree's feelings, he spared her ears less now; for he was
an ignorant man, who had lived through a brutal period in the world's
history the roughest life a man can lead. Two of the men held him
with difficulty against the wall, while the third hastily searched the
room--where, indeed, no one could well be concealed.

Then they quitted the house, followed by the polyglot curses of
Barlasch, who was now endeavouring to find his bayonet amidst his
chaotic possessions.

CHAPTER IX. THE GOLDEN GUESS.

The golden guess
Is morning star to the full round of truth.

Barlasch was never more sober in his life than when he emerged a minute
later from his room, while Lisa was still feverishly bolting the door.
He had not wasted much time at his toilet. In his flannel shirt, his
arms bare to the elbow, knotted and muscular, he looked like some rude
son of toil.

"One thinks of one's self," he hastened to explain to Desiree, fearing
that she might ascribe some other motive to his action. "Some day the
patron may be in power again, and then he will remember a poor soldier.
It is good to think of the future."

He shook his head pe