ings more difficult!"

"Nevertheless, my dear boy, you must try, and at once. Hey
--presto!--away!"

Placed where we were, the stranger was not likely to have observed us;
for we had come into the room from behind the corner in which he was
sitting, and had taken our places at a table which he could not have
seen without shifting his own position. So, thus peremptorily
commanded, I rose; slipped quietly back into the inner salon, made a
pretext of looking at the clock over the door; and came out again, as if
alone and looking for a vacant seat.

The table at which he had placed himself was very small--only just big
enough to stand in a corner and hold a plate and a coffee-cup; but it
was supposed to be large enough for two, and there were evidently two
chairs belonging to it. On one of these, being alone, the stranger had
placed his overcoat and a small black bag. I at once saw and seized my
opportunity.

"Pardon, Monsieur," I said, very civilly, "will you permit me to hang
these things up?"

He looked up, frowned, and said abruptly:--

"Why, Monsieur?"

"That I may occupy this chair."

He glanced round; saw that there was really no other vacant; swept off
the bag and coat with his own hands; hung them on a peg overhead;
dropped back into his former attitude, and went on reading.

"I regret to have given you the trouble, Monsieur," I said, hoping to
pave the way to a conversation.

But a little quick, impatient movement of the hand was his only reply.
He did not even raise his head. He did not even lift his eyes from
the paper.

I called for a demi-tasse and a cigar; then took out a note-book and
pencil, assumed an air of profound abstraction, and affected to become
absorbed in calculations.

In the meanwhile, I could not resist furtively observing the appearance
of this man whom a great artist had selected as his model for one of the
darkest characters of mediaeval history.

He was rather below than above the middle height; spare and sinewy;
square in the shoulders and deep in the chest; with close-clipped hair
and beard; grizzled moustache; high cheek-bones; stern impassive
features, sharply cut; and deep-set restless eyes, quick and glancing as
the eyes of a monkey. His face, throat, and hands were sunburnt to a
deep copper-color, as if cast in bronze. His age might have been from
forty-five to fifty. He wore a thread-bare frock-coat buttoned to the
chin; a stiff black stock revealing no glimpse of