But Sabron was half-way down the stairs. The door was open, and on the porch he heard distinctly a third tenderly pathetic wail. * * * * * * * That evening the Marquise d'Esclignac read aloud to her niece the news that the Count de Sabron was not coming to dinner. He was "absolutely desolated" and had no words to express his regret and disappointment. The pleasure of dining with them both, a pleasure to which he had looked forward for a fortnight, must be renounced because he was obliged to sit up with a very sick friend, as there was no one else to take his place. In expressing his undying devotion and his renewed excuses he put his homage at their feet and kissed their hands. The Marquise d'Esclignac, wearing another very beautiful dress, looked up at her niece, who was playing at the piano. "A very poor excuse, my dear Julia, and a _very_ late one." "It sounds true, however. I believe him, don't you, _ma tante_?" "I do _not_," said the marquise emphatically. "A Frenchman of good education is not supposed to refuse a dinner invitation an hour before he is expected. Nothing but a case of life and death would excuse it." "He says a Very sick friend.'" "Nonsense," exclaimed the marquise. Miss Redmond played a few bars of the tune Sabron had hummed and which more than once had soothed Pitchouné, and which, did she know, Sabron was actually humming at that moment. "I am rather disappointed," said the young girl, "but if we find it is a matter of life and death, _ma tante_, we will forgive him?" The Marquise d'Esclignac had invited the Count de Sabron because she had been asked to do so by his colonel, who was an old and valued friend. She had other plans for her niece. "I feel, my dear," she answered her now, "quite safe in promising that if it is a question of life and death we shall forgive him. I shall see his colonel to-morrow and ask him pointblank." Miss Redmond rose from the piano and came over to her aunt, for dinner had been announced. "Well, what do you think," she slipped her hand in her aunt's arm, "really, what do you think _could_ be the reason?" "Please don't ask me," exclaimed the Marquise d'Esclignac impatiently. "The _reasons_ for young men's caprices are sometimes just as well not inquired into." If Sabron, smoking in his bachelor quarters, lonely and disappointed, watching with an extraordinary fidelity by his "sick friend," could have seen the two ladies at their grand solitary dinner, his unfilled place between them, he might have felt the picture charming enough to have added to his collection. CHAPTER IV THE DOG PAYS Pitchouné repaid what was given him.