ck to my lodging and seek Monsieur early in the morning.

Madame Gravois was awaiting me. Was Monsieur mad to remain out at night?
Had Monsieur not heard of the yellow fever? Madame Gravois even had
prepared some concoction which she poured out of a bottle, and which I
took with the docility of a child. Monsieur Vigo had called, and there
was a note. A note? It was a small note. I glanced stupidly at the
seal, recognized the swan of the St. Gre crest, broke it, 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 min