But the room was not empty! There was a burnt-down fire on the hearth, a couple of candles on the table, and a coat and waistcoat flung upon a chair. For a moment M. des Graves was staggered, until he suddenly remembered having heard that the Vicomte was a temporary occupant of Gilbert’s apartment. Vexed at his intrusion he turned to go, hoping that he had not disturbed the sleeper, and speculating as to the incendiary possibilities of the two guttering candles. “I have a very good mind to blow them out,” he said to himself. “Louis will tell me that I am becoming an old maid, but it is really very careless of him. As he has not heard me he is obviously asleep and cannot need them.” Having resolved on this precaution the priest advanced softly round the screen which cut off from his view the bed and a portion of the table. He did not get very far. Louis was not in bed, nor was he asleep. He was sitting half dressed at the table, his face hidden in his arms, in an attitude whose significance there was no mistaking. . . . And as M. des Graves stood petrified he saw the young man’s shoulders move and his right hand tighten convulsively at the same instant round some unseen object which it held. The priest could not avoid knowing what it was, for between the fingers flowed the broad blue ribbon which commonly suspended on the wall the little miniature of Lucienne d’Aucourt. CHAPTER XXX FEARS, HOPES, AND MYSTIFICATION OF M. DES GRAVES If Louis slept soundly during the remainder of that night M. des Graves did not. He went down slowly to the library, and sat there a long time by the dying fire, stunned. Louis in love with Gilbert’s affianced wife! But that was only a part of the calamity. Had it stopped there the priest might merely have pitied him, the victim of a hopeless passion which he had tried to conceal. But the case did not stand thus; there was more behind. All that sensation of tension which had afflicted the observer at the return of the cousins from Paris was explained now, and explained in the most disastrous manner conceivable. For Gilbert knew something, and therefore there must be something to know. What was it? That Lucienne was deceiving him? Ah no! God grant that it was not that! Yet what of the look which he had surprised on the Marquis’ face that evening when he had spoken to him of Lucienne—a look which had haunted him ever since? And that mysterious weight on Louis’ mind, of which, the same evening, he had so nearly unburdened himself—his fits of depression now. . . . Alas, it was all too clear. . . . Yet he could not believe that the Vicomte had acted treacherously. He was in love with Lucienne, granted; it was a misfortune, but that was all. Back came the other argument; if that were all, how explain Gilbert’s behaviour, Louis’ own dejection? It all came round to the same heartbreaking inference. . . .