d him.

"Come, Monsieur," he said, "your work at the Chateau Gordon is
finished for this night. I shall leave you with yourself--at home, as
you say--in a few moments. Gaspard--Gaspard, _fermez la porte a
cle_!"

The strong nasal voice echoed through the house, and the servant ran
lightly down the stairs. His master muttered a few sentences to him,
holding up his right hand as he did so, with the five fingers
extended, as if to impress something on the man's mind.

"Pardon," he said, turning to Carmichael, "that I speak always French,
after the rebuke. But this time it is of necessity. I repeat the
instruction for the pilules. One at each hour until eight
o'clock--five, not more--it is correct? Come, then, our equipage is
always harnessed, always ready, how convenient!"

The two men did not speak as the car rolled through the brumous night.
A rising wind was sifting the fog. The moon had set. The loosened
leaves came whirling, fluttering, sinking through the darkness like a
flight of huge dying moths. Now and then they brushed the faces of the
travellers with limp, moist wings.

The red night-lamp in the drug-store was still burning. Carmichael
called the other's attention to it.

"You have the prescription?"

"Without doubt!" he answered. "After I have escorted you, I shall
procure the drug."

The doctor's front door was lit up as he had left it. The light
streamed out rather brightly and illumined the Baron's sullen black
eyes and smiling lips as he leaned from the car, lifting his cap.

"A thousand thanks, my dear doctor, you have been excessively kind;
yes, truly of an excessive goodness for us. It is a great
pleasure--how do you tell it in English?--it is a great pleasure to
have met you. _Adieu._"

"Till to-morrow morning!" said Carmichael, cheerfully, waving his
hand.

The Baron stared at him curiously, and lifted his cap again.

"_Adieu!_" droned the insistent voice, and the great car slid into the
dark.

IV

The next morning was of crystal. It was after nine when Carmichael
drove his electric-phaeton down the leaf-littered street, where the
country wagons and the decrepit hacks were already meandering
placidly, and out along the highroad, between the still green fields.
It seemed to him as if the experience of the past night were "such
stuff as dreams are made of." Yet the impression of what he had seen
and heard in that firelit chamber--of the eyes, the voice, the hand of
that strangely