ot----"

"Dead."

"Dead!"

"As a mackerel!"

Jean paled perceptibly and almost staggered against his friend.

"Impossible!" he murmured. "It can't be! How----"

"Oh, easy enough," interrupted the other, lightly. "Some ruffian
choked him to death, they say. Liable to occur, is it not? Sorry, of
course, but----"

Fortunately for Jean's self-control, they were rudely separated by two
angry opponents who wanted to fight it out then and there. He would
have betrayed himself in another moment. And, wrought up to the
present tension, it seemed as if he must go mad and shriek his guilt
to all the world.

He sought an obscure corner and sat down on the floor with his back to
the wall, his chin upon his knees.

In his own soul he was condemned already. He only awaited the
guillotine.

When he was aroused the room was almost cleared. A couple of agents
roughly hustled him before the busy commissaire. It was the old
official the student had struck that morning. The red welt across his
face gave it a sinister appearance. He glanced at the arraigned, then
read from the blotter,--

"Jean Marot, student,--um, um, um!--charged with--with--let's
see--with uttering seditious cries calculated to lead to a breach of
the peace. What have you got to say for yourself, young man?"

The prisoner had nothing to say for himself,--at least, nothing better
than that,--so he was speechless.

"Ah! evidently never been here before," said the old commissaire. "Go!
and never come here again. Discharged. Call the next."

"Monsieur le Commissaire," began a police agent who had here risen to
his feet with an air of remonstrance,--"monsieur----"

"Call the next!" said the commissaire, waving the agent down
peremptorily.

And thus Jean Marot, before he had recovered from his surprise, or
could even realize what had happened, was again hustled through the
corridor, this time to be unceremoniously thrust into the street--a
free man.

"Hold, Monsieur Jean!" said the lively voice of Mlle. Fouchette. "What
a precious long time you have been!"

"It might have been longer," he remarked, vaguely accepting her
presence as not unnatural, and suffering himself to be led down the
block.

"Oh, here it is," said she, going straight to a cab in waiting. "Now,
don't stop to ask questions or I'll be wicked. Get in! Dinner is----"

"Dinner is, is it?" he repeated, almost hysterically.

He felt exhausted physically and mentally, indifferent as to w