now close upon two o'clock, and I had been out since between
three and four the previous afternoon--not quite twenty-four hours, in
point of actual time; but a week, a month, a year, in point of
sensation! Had I not seen a man die since that hour yesterday?

Walking homewards through the garish streets in the hot afternoon, all
the strange scenes in which I had just been an actor thronged
fantastically upon my memory. The joyous dinner with Franz Mueller; the
busy Temple; the noisy theatre; the long chase through the wet streets
at midnight; the crowded gaming-house; the sweet country drive at early
morning; the quiet wood, and the dead man lying on his back, with the
shadows of the leaves upon his face,--all this, in strange distinctness,
came between me and the living tide of the Boulevards.

And now, over-tired and over-excited as I was, I remembered for the
first time that I had eaten nothing since half-past five that morning.
And then I also remembered that I had left Mueller waiting for me under
the archway, without a word of explanation. I promised myself that I
would write to him as soon as I got home, and in the meantime turned in
at the first Cafe to which I came and called for breakfast. But when the
breakfast was brought, I could not eat it. The coffee tasted bitter to
me. The meat stuck in my throat. I wanted rest more than food--rest of
body and mind, and the forgetfulness of sleep! So I paid my bill, and,
leaving the untasted meal, went home like a man in a dream.

Madame Bouisse was not in her little lodge as I passed it--neither was
my key on its accustomed hook. I concluded that she was cleaning my
rooms, and so, going upstairs, found my door open. Hearing my own name,
however, I paused involuntarily upon the threshold.

"And so, as I was saying," pursued a husky voice, which I knew at once
to be the property of Madame Bouisse, "M'sieur Basil's friend painted it
on purpose for him; and I am sure if he was as good a Catholic as the
Holy Father himself, and that picture was a true portrait of our Blessed
Lady, he could not worship it more devoutly. I believe he says his
prayers to it, mam'selle! I often find it in the morning stuck up by the
foot of his bed; and when he comes home of an evening to study his books
and papers, it always stands on a chair just in front of his table, so
that he can see it without turning his head, every time he lifts his
eyes from the writing!"

In the murmured reply tha