‘On the contrary, monsieur,’ said some one near them in the crowd. ‘The poor man’s face was not injured. He is a handsome fellow, tanned by the sun; a seafaring man, a fine fellow.’ ‘Let’s go in and see him,’ urged La Chicot, and when La Chicot wanted to do a thing she always did it. So they waited amongst the crowd, close-packed still, though about two-thirds of the people had dropped off and gone back to their business or their pleasure; not because they shrank from looking upon death in its most awful aspect, but because the toilet might be long, and the spectacle was not worth the trouble of waiting a weary half-hour in the summer sun. La Chicot waited with a dogged patience which was a part of her character when she had made up her mind about anything. Jack waited patiently too; for he was watching the faces in the crowd, and had an artistic delight in studying these various specimens of a somewhat debased humanity. Thus the half-hour wore itself out, the doors were opened, and the crowd poured into the dead-house, just as it would have poured into a theatre or a circus. There he lay, the new-comer, with the summer light shining on him--a calm figure behind a sheet of glass, a brave, bronzed face, bearded, with strongly-marked brows and close-cropped black hair, gold rings in the ears, and on one bare arm, the arm which had escaped the wagon wheel, an inscription tattooed in purple and red. Jack Chicot, after contemplating the dead man’s face with curious interest, fixing the well-marked features in his mind, bent down to look at the tattooed device and inscription. There was a ship, a rose, and these words, ‘Dedicated to Saint Anne of Auray.’ The man was doubtless a native of Auray, La Chicot’s birthplace. Jack turned to remark this to his wife. She was standing close at his elbow, livid as the corpse behind the glass, her face convulsed, big tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘Do you know him?’ asked Jack. ‘Is it any one you remember?’ ‘No, no!’ she sobbed; ‘but it is too dreadful. Take me away--take me out of this place, or I shall drop down in a fit.’ He hurried her out through the crowd, pushing his way into the open air. ‘You overrated your strength of nerve,’ he said, vexed at the folly which had exposed her to such a shock. ‘You should not have a fancy for such horrid sights.’ ‘I shall be better presently,’ answered La Chicot. ‘It is nothing.’ She was not better presently. She was hysterical all the rest of the day, and at night had no sooner closed her eyes than she started up from her pillow, sobbing violently, and holding her hands before her face. ‘Don’t let me see him!’ she cried passionately. ‘Jack, why are you so cruel as to make me see him? You are holding me against the glass--you are forcing me to look at him. Take me away.’ Pondering to-night upon this strange scene of five years ago, John Treverton asked himself if there might not have been some kind of link between this man and Zaïre Chicot.