“We can easily find them out. Our host of the City Hotel will doubtless be able to give us information. Look here, Leonard, I have the plan!” and he took paper and pencil from his pocket, and the two bent over it in consultation for about half an hour. Then Annette joined them, and they went to the dinner table, and afterwards Achille told Annette the dilemma into which Leonard had fallen. He said nothing of a duel, however; neither did Annette, a circumstance which would have convinced any woman that she anticipated that result, and was carefully pondering it. That Leonard stayed with them all night, and that Achille went out with him early in the morning, was to her substantial confirmation of her suspicions. Privately, she was very angry. Why should her husband relate himself and his spotless honour with a man whose character had been so shamefully defamed? It was in Annette’s eyes a piece of Quixotic imprudence. She thought Achille ought to have remembered that he had a wife and daughter, and that, at least, her approval should have been asked. She said to herself that it was not unlikely there was some truth in all Mr. Gilson had asserted. Men so available as Leonard Murray were likely to be womanish; and he was always dangling after Sappha Bloommaert. Gilson had been talking for three days. It was strange, indeed, that Leonard had not stopped such imputations at once. “I don’t believe he was ignorant of them,” she said, and in her passion she uttered the words aloud: “He knew all about Gilson’s abuse, but he thought the man would grow weary, or go away, or that Achille or some of his friends, would lift the quarrel for him. And when none of these conveniences have come, then he has sought out my husband. Oh, yes! he knew Achille was always ready for a fight--it is a shame! I am not going to permit it; Leonard Murray must conduct his own quarrels.” To such thoughts she nursed her surmised wrongs all day; and as Achille did not return home until very late she had become hysterical under the pressure of their certainty. Nor did her husband’s evasive carelessness allay her anxiety; she was not consoled by his smiles, nor by the light kiss with which he advised her “to sleep and forget her imaginary fears.” This course was not possible to Annette; she lay awake considering and planning until the dawn. Then, when she ought to have been on the alert, she fell into the dead sleep of utter mental and physical weariness.