th the gentle eyes who now immediately began to prepare our breakfast.

"How's Daddy Mathieu?" asked Rouletabille.

"Not much better--not much better; he is still confined to his bed."

"His rheumatism still sticks to him, then?"

"Yes. Last night I was again obliged to give him morphine--the only drug
that gives him any relief."

She spoke in a soft voice. Everything about her expressed gentleness.
She was, indeed, a beautiful woman; somewhat with an air of indolence,
with great eyes seemingly black and blue--amorous eyes. Was she happy
with her crabbed, rheumatic husband? The scene at which we had once been
present did not lead us to believe that she was; yet there was something
in her bearing that was not suggestive of despair. She disappeared into
the kitchen to prepare our repast, leaving on the table a bottle of
excellent cider. Rouletabille filled our earthenware mugs, loaded his
pipe, and quietly explained to me his reason for asking me to come to
the Glandier with revolvers.

"Yes," he said, contemplatively looking at the clouds of smoke he was
puffing out, "yes, my dear boy, I expect the assassin to-night." A brief
silence followed, which I took care not to interrupt, and then he went
on:

"Last night, just as I was going to bed, Monsieur Robert Darzac knocked
at my room. When he came in he confided to me that he was compelled to
go to Paris the next day, that is, this morning. The reason which made
this journey necessary was at once peremptory and mysterious; it was not
possible for him to explain its object to me. 'I go, and yet,' he added,
'I would give my life not to leave Mademoiselle Stangerson at this
moment.' He did not try to hide that he believed her to be once more in
danger. 'It will not greatly astonish me if something happens to-morrow
night,' he avowed, 'and yet I must be absent. I cannot be back at the
Glandier before the morning of the day after to-morrow.'

"I asked him to explain himself, and this is all he would tell me.
His anticipation of coming danger had come to him solely from the
coincidence that Mademoiselle Stangerson had been twice attacked, and
both times when he had been absent. On the night of the incident of the
inexplicable gallery he had been obliged to be away from the Glandier.
On the night of the tragedy in The Yellow Room he had also not been able
to be at the Glandier, though this was the first time he had declared
himself on the matter. Now a man so moved who wo