Louis crossed the room with a show of caution the more strange as the early December sun was shining and all without was cheerful. "Has he come back?" Blondel whispered. "Claude?" "Fool!" Low as the Syndic pitched his tone it expressed a world of contempt. "No, Basterga?" The youth shook his head, and again laying his finger to his lips listened. "What! He has not?" Blondel's colour returned, his eyes bulged out with passion. What did the imbecile mean? Because he knew certain things did he think himself privileged to play the fool? The Syndic's fingers tingled. Another second and he had broken the silence with a vengeance, when-- "You are--too late!" Louis muttered. "Too late!" he repeated with protruded lips. Blondel glared at him as if he would annihilate him. Too late? What did this creature know? Or how could it be too late, if Basterga had not returned? Yet the Syndic was shaken. His fingers no longer tingled for the other's cheek; he no longer panted to break the silence in a way that should startle him. On the contrary, he listened; while his eyes passed swiftly round the room, to gather what was amiss. But all seemed in order. The lads' bowls and spoons stood on the table, the great roll of brown bread lay beside them, and a book, probably Claude's, lay face downwards on the board. The door of one of the bedrooms stood open. The Syndic's suspicious gaze halted at the closed door. He pointed to it. Louis shook his head; then, seeing that this was not enough, "There is no one there," he whispered. "But I cannot tell you here. I will follow you, honoured sir, to----" "The Porte Tertasse." "Mercier would meet us, by your leave," Louis rejoined with a faint grin. The magistrate glared at the tool who on a sudden was turned adviser. Still, for the time he must humour him. "The mills, then, on the bridge," he muttered. And he opened the door with care and went out. With a dreadful sense of coming evil he went along the Corraterie and took his way down the steep to the bridge which, far below, curbed the blue rushing waters of the Rhone. The roar of the icy torrent and of the busy mills, stupendous as it was, was not loud enough to deaden the two words that clung to his ears, "Too late! Too late!" Nor did the frosty sunshine, gloriously reflected from the line of snowy peaks to eastward, avail to pierce the gloom in which he walked. For Louis Gentilis, if it should turn out that he had inflicted this penance for naught, there was preparing an evil hour.