Follet had treated himself to a three days' drinking-bout, and only emerged, blanched and palsied, into a town filled with the clamor of her funeral. Stires had shut up his junk-shop for a time and stayed strictly at home. I went to see him, the day after they found her. His face was drawn and gloomy, but it was the face of a man in his right mind. I think his worst time was that hour after Follet had followed Ching Po out of his warehouse. He never told me just how things had stood between French Eva and him, but I am sure that he believed Ching Po at once, and that, from the moment Ching Po spoke, it was all over. It was no longer even real to him, so surely had his inborn prejudice worked. Stires was no Pierre Loti. In decency we had to mention her. There was a great to-do about it in the town, and the tom-toms had mysteriously returned from the hillsides. "I've been pretty cut up about it all," he admitted. "But there's no doubt it's for the best. As I look back on it, I see she never was comfortable in her mind. On and off, hot and cold--and I took it for flightiness. The light broke in on me, all of a sudden, when that dirty yellow rascal began to talk. But if you'll believe me, sir, I used to be jealous of Follet. Think of it, now." He began to whittle. Evidently her ravings to Madame Mauer had not yet come to his ears. Madame Mauer was capable of holding her tongue; and there was a chance Follet might hold his. At all events, I would not tell Stires how seriously she had loved him. He was a very provincial person, and I think--considering her pedigree--it would have shocked him.