could barely reply to her remarks.

She was in no mood for conversation, poor lady; so there dropped upon us
a dead silence, during which she stared frozenly into the fire while I,
afraid to move, occupied the time by storing in my memory every
bewitching detail of her dress and person. The oil sketch of her I made
a day or two afterwards hangs before me as I write these lines. I prided
myself on having caught the colour of her hair--black with the blue
reflections like the blue of cigarette smoke.

Suddenly the quietness was startled by loud groans of agony and
unintelligible speech coming from some room of the flat. Paragot
staggered noisily to his feet, a shaking, hairy, dishevelled spectre,
blinking glazed eyes.

Madame de Verneuil started and leaned forward, her hands on the arms of
her chair.

"My husband," she whispered, and for a few seconds we all listened to
the unearthly sounds. Then she rose and turned to me.

"You had better see it through."

She crossed to Paragot.

"Are you better now?"

"I can do what is required of me," said my master, humbly, though in his
ordinary voice. He was practically sober.

"Then come," said Joanna.

We followed her out of the room, through softly carpeted corridors full
of pictures and statues and beautiful vases, and entered a dimly lit
bedroom. A nurse rose from a chair by the bed, where lay a bald-headed,
beaky-nosed man groaning and raving in some terrible madness. Joanna
gripped my arm as Paragot went to the bedside.

"I am Gaston de Nerac," said he.

The Comte de Verneuil raised himself on his elbow and looked at him in a
wild way. I too should have liked to grip someone's arm, for the sight
of the man sent a shudder through me, but I braced myself up under the
consoling idea that I was protecting Joanna.

"You are not dead then? I did not kill you?" said the Comte de Verneuil.

"No, since I am here to tell you that I am alive."

The sweat poured off the man's face. He lay back exhausted.

"I do not know why," he gasped, "but I thought I had killed you." He
closed his eyes.

"That is enough," said the nurse.

Without a word, we all returned to the drawing-room. It was an
astounding comedy.

"I am grateful," said Joanna to my master. "I wish there were some means
of repaying you."

"I thought," said he, with a touch of irony which she did not notice,
"that it was I who was paying for a wrong I did you."

She drew herself up and surveyed him fro