“_Non_, Monsieur. I have lived with Madame’s sister for nearly a week when she first came into this house. She wanted me to leave the message, but I said I would wait a little. Then I sat down in the big porter’s chair in the hall and after a while, everything being very quiet, I stole up here. I know the disposition of the apartments. I reckoned Madame’s sister would think that I got tired of waiting and let myself out.” “And you have been amusing yourself watching the street ever since?” “The time seemed long,” she answered evasively. “An empty _coupé_ came to the door about an hour ago and it’s still waiting,” she added, looking at me inquisitively. “It seems strange.” “There are some dancing girls staying in the house,” I said negligently. “Did you leave Madame alone?” “There’s the gardener and his wife in the house.” “Those people keep at the back. Is Madame alone? That’s what I want to know.” “Monsieur forgets that I have been three hours away; but I assure Monsieur that here in this town it’s perfectly safe for Madame to be alone.” “And wouldn’t it be anywhere else? It’s the first I hear of it.” “In Paris, in our apartments in the hotel, it’s all right, too; but in the Pavilion, for instance, I wouldn’t leave Madame by herself, not for half an hour.” “What is there in the Pavilion?” I asked. “It’s a sort of feeling I have,” she murmured reluctantly . . . “Oh! There’s that _coupé_ going away.” She made a movement towards the window but checked herself. I hadn’t moved. The rattle of wheels on the cobble-stones died out almost at once. “Will Monsieur write an answer?” Rose suggested after a short silence. “Hardly worth while,” I said. “I will be there very soon after you. Meantime, please tell Madame from me that I am not anxious to see any more tears. Tell her this just like that, you understand. I will take the risk of not being received.” She dropped her eyes, said: “_Oui_, Monsieur,” and at my suggestion waited, holding the door of the room half open, till I went downstairs to see the road clear. It was a kind of deaf-and-dumb house. The black-and-white hall was empty and everything was perfectly still. Blunt himself had no doubt gone away with his mother in the brougham, but as to the others, the dancing girls, Therese, or anybody else that its walls may have contained, they might have been all murdering each other in perfect assurance that the house would not betray them by indulging in any unseemly murmurs. I emitted a low whistle which didn’t seem to travel in that peculiar atmosphere more than two feet away from my lips, but all the same Rose came tripping down the stairs at once. With just a nod to my whisper: “Take a fiacre,” she glided out and I shut the door noiselessly behind her.