When at last Madame Gilbert went to her room she was smiling gaily and showing no signs of fatigue at the tiresome exercises of the day. Though it was approaching midnight the faithful Marie was waiting to assist her toilet. "Ah, madame," sighed Marie in her frank Parisienne fashion, "le Capitaine is so beautiful and devoted. He regards you as one who would devour. I marvel that you have the heart to separate from him." "Marie," said Madame, laughing, "you are a naughty girl, a corrupter of my youthful morals. I am afraid that _le bon Capitaine_ must go hungry. For--" and then she pranced off upon that wearisome old story about the blown-up Territorial bore of _le Grand Couronné_. Fidelity to the scattered corpse of a husband--_un mari assommant, mon Dieu, pas un amant joyeux_!--seemed to Marie the most wasted of emotions. She, in common with all the other Frenchmen and women in the hotel, was an ardent partisan of Captain Rouille. "If my bell rings in the night, come quickly, Marie," said Madame, as she dismissed the girl. "I shall need you _à la grande vitesse_." Madame slipped the seductive paper and something else under her pillow, saw that the electric and the light switch were close to her hand upon the bedside table, and snuggled down contentedly. "The trap is set and baited," she murmured; "I hope that the bird will not keep me waiting." An hour passed slowly. Rust has told me little of his feelings, but admitted that he was in the "devil of a funk." He had determined to make a daring shot at the paper and the solution of Madame's identity, but he shivered at the prospect of her wrath should she awake and catch him in the act. "She would have thought the worst of me, and, like you, Copplestone, I cherish her beautiful friendship as the most precious of privileges. On my honour I was only after the paper." Madame found the waiting time very tedious, but I am sure that her pulse did not quicken by a beat. She has a wonderful nerve.