He would have had time to prepare himself, that was all. But to prepare himself for what? Either to enter the room and brave this danger, or to fly. He entered. "This is what we have decided," Balzajette said, who never lost an occasion to put himself forward and to speak. While he spoke, Madame Dammauville seemed not to listen to him. Her eyes were on Saniel, placed beween her and the chimney with his back to the lamps, and she looked at him with a characteristic fixedness. Balzajette, who listened to himself, observed nothing; but Saniel, who knew what there was behind this glance, could not but be struck with it. Happily for him, he had only to let Balzajette talk, for if he had spoken he would surely have betrayed himself by the quivering of his voice. However, Balzajette seemed coming to the end of his explanations. Suddenly Saniel saw Madame Dammauville extend her hand toward the lamp on the table, and raise the shade by lowering it toward her in such a way as to form a reflector that threw the light on him. At the same time he received a bright ray full on his face. Madame Dammauville uttered a small, stifled cry. Balzajette stopped; then his astonished eyes went from Madame Dammauville to Saniel, and front Saniel to Madame Dammauville. "Are you suffering?" he asked. "Not at all." What, then, was the matter? But it was seldom that he asked for an explanation of a thing that astonished him, preferring to divine and to explain it himself. "Ah! I understand it," he said with a satisfied smile. "The youth of my young 'confrere' astonishes you. It is his fault. Why the devil did he have his long hair and his light curled beard cut?" If Madame Dammauville had not released the lampshade, she would have seen Saniel turned pale and his lips quiver. "Mais voila!" continued Balzajette. "He made this sacrifice to his new functions; the student has disappeared before the professor." He might have continued along time. Neither Madame Dammauville nor Saniel listened to him; but, thinking of his dinner, he was not going to launch into a discourse that at any other moment he would not have failed to undertake. He rose to go. As Saniel bowed, Madame Dammauville stopped him with a movement of her hand. "Did you not know this unfortunate who was assassinated opposite?" she asked, pointing to the windows. So serious as was an acknowledgment, Saniel could not answer in the negative. "I was called in to prove his death," he said. And he took several steps toward the door, but she stopped him again. "Had you business with him?" she asked. "I saw him several times." Balzajette cut short this conversation, which was idle talk to him. "Good evening, dear Madame. I will see you tomorrow, but not in the morning, for I go to the country at six o'clock, and shall not return until noon." CHAPTER XXXIII SUSPENSE