riwigs.

The furniture was of an old type. Pushed against one wall, near where
Leroux stood, was an ancient piano, and standing upon the other side an
old man played upon a violin.

He must have been nearly eighty years of age. His face had fallen in
over the toothless gums, leaving the prominent cheek-bones protruding
like those of a skull, and his head was a heavy mat of straight grey
hair. He looked like a full-blooded Indian.

Two couples were dancing on the floor. Each man had an Indian woman.
One was middle-aged; the other, a comely young girl with heavy silver
earrings, was laughing noisily as her companion dragged her to a
standstill in front of the fiddler.

"Play faster, Pierre Caribou!" he yelled, pushing the old man backward.

It was the man with the patch!

"Be quiet, Jean Petitjean!" exclaimed the girl, giving him a mock blow.
"Thou shall not hurt my father!"

They laughed drunkenly and resumed the dance. The man with the older
woman was not--greatly to my surprise--Jean Petitjean's companion of
the night. The woman was addressing him as Raoul. She seemed trying
to quiet him, for he was shouting boisterously as he twirled.

From his post across the room Leroux watched the proceedings with his
sneering smile.

Flaring candles were set in sconces of wrought iron around the room,
casting a pallid light upon the scene, and so unreal it would have been
but for my recognition of the men that I might have expected it to
disappear before my eyes.

I crept back from the door and, tracing my journey along the corridor,
began to ascend the stairs.

On the first story I perceived a number of rooms, but those whose doors
were open were dark and apparently empty. I imagined that all the
magnificence of the _chateau_ was concentrated in that big ballroom.

The corridor on the first story had smaller passages opening out of
it--one at each end. I turned to the left. Now the sound of the
cataracts, which had never left my ears, became a din. The passages
were full of stale tobacco smoke. And advancing I suddenly found
myself face to face with Philippe Lacroix.

He was seated at a table in a room writing, and I came right upon the
door before I was aware of it. I saw his thin face with the little
upturned mustache and the cold sneer about the mouth; and I think I
should have shot him if he had looked up. But he neither heard nor saw
me, but wrote steadily, puffing at a vile cigar, and I crept b