"Madam," said he, "some day you will hear what I had rather you heard now and from me. Madame Duclos left the lodging-house where she was so safe because she was detected, or was suspicious of having been detected, shooting the face from a photograph she had set up before her as a target in the small hours of the night." "Impossible!" The woman thus exclaiming was quite sincere. "I cannot imagine Antoinette doing that." "Yet she did. We have the remains of the photograph." "And who was the man?" "When we know that, we shall know all, or be in the way of knowing all." "You alarm me!" She certainly looked alarmed. "Why, madam? Do you not think it better for the truth to be known in such a case?" "You forget what I told you. Antoinette will not survive the betrayal of her secret. She said she would not, and she is a woman who weighs her words. There is a firm edge to her resolves. It has always worked for good till now. I cannot bear to think of its working in any way for evil." "Has she socialistic ideas? Can her hatred be for some of our plutocrats or supposed oppressors of the people?" "Oh, no; she is of aristocratic descent and proud of her order. The Duclos are bourgeois, but Antoinette is a De Montfort." Mr. Gryce suppressed all token of his instinctive amazement. This fine American woman was not without a sense of reflected glory given by this fact. Her sister-in-law was a De Montfort! Expressing his thanks for her candor, he rose to depart. "For all that," said he, "she may be at heart a _revolutionnaire_." Then, as he noticed the negation in her look, he added softly: "The least clue as to her present refuge would make me greatly your debtor." "I cannot give it; I do not know it." And somehow he believed her as absolutely as even she could desire. If he should yet be fortunate enough to find this elusive Madame, it would have to be through some other agency than these relatives of hers by marriage. As he passed out, he heard a frightened gasp from somewhere back in the hall. Turning, he asked in the most natural manner whether there were children in the house. Mrs. Duclos answered with some dignity that she had three daughters. "You are fortunate, madame," he remarked with his old-fashioned bow. "I live alone. My last grandchild left me a year ago for a man many years my junior." This brought the little one into his view. She was smiling, and he went away in a state of relief marred by but one regret: He was as ignorant as ever where to look for the mother of Angeline. XX MR. GRYCE AND THE UNWARY WOMAN