Raymon, when he saw her, had a feeling of embarrassment and irritation, but without the courage to scold her, without the strength to say a friendly word to her. "Why did you lock me in this room?" he said at last. "Do you forget that it is broad daylight and that I cannot go out without compromising you openly?" "So you're not to go out," said Noun caressingly. "The house is deserted and no one can see you; the gardener never comes to this part of the building to which I alone have the keys. You must stay with me all day; you are my prisoner." This arrangement drove Raymon to despair; he had no other feeling for his mistress than a sort of aversion. However, he could do nothing but submit, and it may be that, notwithstanding what he suffered in that room, an invincible attraction detained him there. When Noun left him to go and find something for breakfast, he set about examining by daylight all those dumb witnesses of Indiana's solitude. He opened her books, turned the leaves of her albums, then closed them precipitately; for he still shrank from committing a profanation and violating some feminine mystery. At last he began to pace the room and noticed, on the wooden panel opposite Madame Delmare's bed, a large picture, richly framed and covered with a double thickness of gauze. Perhaps it was Indiana's portrait. Raymon, in his eagerness to see it, forgot his scruples, stepped on a chair, removed the pins, and was amazed to see a full-length portrait of a handsome young man. VIII "It seems to me that I know that face," he said to Noun, struggling to assume an indifferent attitude. "Fi! monsieur," said the girl, as she placed on a table the tray that she brought containing the breakfast; "it is not right to try and find out my mistress's secrets." This remark made Raymon turn pale. "Secrets!" he said. "If this is a secret, it has been confided to you, Noun, and you were doubly guilty in bringing me to this room." "Oh! no, it's not a secret," said Noun with a smile; "for Monsieur Delmare himself assisted in hanging Sir Ralph's portrait on that panel. As if madame could have any secrets with a husband so jealous!" "Sir Ralph, you say? Who is Sir Ralph?" "Sir Rodolphe Brown, madame's cousin, her playmate in childhood, and my own, too, I might say; he is such a good man!" Raymon scrutinized the picture with surprise and some uneasiness.