It was obvious that by feeling round the walls he would arrive in time at the door, shut or open, of the other room, for whose presence the landlord had vouched. La Vireville began this circumnavigation (so he discovered) in the neighbourhood of the washstand; proceeded a little--going very slowly and quietly, and feeling carefully with his hands--passed a hanging press, the fireplace, and began to be conscious that he was approaching the bed. He stopped, not wishing to collide with it, and at that moment found his hands resting on something thrown over the back of a chair. And that something was--yes, there could be no doubt--a pair of corsets. "Ciel!" exclaimed the petrified émigré below his breath. Wild ideas scurried instantly through his brain, as that Anne's companion was really of the corset-wearing sex, or that he had a woman with him, or---- Then a simpler explanation visited him; he had, in the darkness without, mistaken the room, and his present business was to get out of this apartment, whoever were its tenant, as quickly and as quietly as possible. If the snoring fair one should wake! . . . It was a very long minute before he found himself outside the door again. * * * * * He set forth the second time with a candle, and found that he had, indeed, mistaken the number. Number Nine was two doors farther on. He could only hope that the snorer would continue the sound sleep in which he had left her, since what he contemplated doing in Number Nine might cause some noise. He knocked gently at the door of that apartment. There was instantly a movement within, followed by a sound as of someone getting out of or off the bed. He knocked again, and then the door was unlocked, and opened a foot or two by the man whom La Vireville sought. He was half-dressed, and had a pistol in his hand. There was a lamp burning in the room. "May I come in, citizen?" asked La Vireville mildly, facing the barrel with all the appearance of innocent intent. "I wish to speak with you on important business." The occupant of Number Nine looked at him straight and searchingly with his strange light eyes. Then, still keeping his visitor covered, he moved aside for him to enter, and closed the door behind him, locking it. La Vireville's immediate dread, on entering, was of finding Anne-Hilarion there, or at least awake in the inner room,--whose door he saw ajar in front of him,--to recognise him, as he surely would, with a cry, and spoil everything. "Shall I close this door?" he suggested, and, turning his back on the pistol, he shut the door which faced him. "We do not want to wake the boy, and it is about him that I have come to speak to you." "You choose a very strange time for the errand, citizen," observed M. Duchâtel, but he lowered the pistol.