and read:--

"Mr. Ritchie will confer a favor upon la Vicomtesse d'Ivry-le-Tour if he
will come to Monsieur de St. Gre's house at eight to-morrow morning."

I bade the reluctant Madame Gravois good night, gained my room, threw
off my clothes, and covered myself with the mosquito bar. There was no
question of sleep, for the events of the day and surmises for the morrow
tortured me as I tossed in the heat. Had the man been Gignoux? If so, he
was in league with Carondelet's police. I believed him fully capable of
this. And if he knew Nick's whereabouts and St. Gre's, they would both
be behind the iron gateway of the calabozo in the morning. Monsieur Vigo
had pointed out to me that day the gloomy, heavy-walled prison in
the rear of the Cabildo,--ay, and he had spoken of its instruments of
torture.

What could the Vicomtesse want? Truly (I thought with remorse) she had
been more industrious than I.

I fell at length into a fevered sleep, and awoke, athirst, with the
light trickling through my lattices. Contrary to Madame Gravois's
orders, I had opened the glass of my window. Glancing at my
watch,--which I had bought in Philadelphia,--I saw that the hands
pointed to half after seven. I had scarcely finished my toilet before
there was a knock at the door, and Madame Gravois entered with a
steaming cup of coffee in one hand and her bottle of medicine in the
other.

"I did not wake Monsieur," she said, "for he was tired."

She gave me another dose of the medicine, made me drink two cups of
coffee, and then I started out with all despatch for the House of the
Lions. As I turned into the Rue Chartres I saw ahead of me four horses,
with their bridles bunched and held by a negro lad, waiting in the
street. Yes, they were in front of the house. There it was, with its
solid green gates between the lions, its yellow walls with the fringe
of peeping magnolias and oranges, with its green-latticed gallery
from which Monsieur Auguste had let himself down after stealing the
miniature. I knocked at the wicket, the same gardienne answered the
call, smiled, led me through the cool, paved archway which held in its
frame the green of the court beyond, and up the stairs with the quaint
balustrade which I had mounted five years before to meet Philippe de
St. Gre. As I reached the gallery Madame la Vicomtesse, gowned in brown
linen for riding, rose quickly from her chair and came forward to meet
me.

"You have news?" I asked, as I took he