From where Luc stood he had a complete picture of the interior of this room where the light had appeared; it was a very luxurious apartment, and gleamed the colour of an opal across the dusky street. But Luc’s attention was arrested, not by the room, but by the two people within it: one was the gentleman who had just entered the house, the other a woman of exquisite fairness wearing a gown of white lace and grey silk. When Luc first looked across she was holding the man by the shoulders and gazing anxiously into his face; with a languid movement of loathing and fear he put her hands down. An overblown white rose fell from his cravat and scattered its petals on the polished floor between them. The lady made a movement of considerable alarm and distress, and the gentleman, who seemed never to look at her, cast himself along a gilt couch, and Luc had another glimpse of his perfect face, with the expression of almost unendurable fear and gloom, as he raised it for a moment before hiding it in the satin cushions. The lady, who was herself of great beauty, seemed both angry and frightened. She retreated from the couch, then, with an obvious start, saw the uncovered window, came across the room and impatiently lowered the heavy velvet curtain, which, falling into place, completely shut the rest of the little scene from Luc’s gaze. CHAPTER II A WALLED GARDEN Luc made little of the incident of the house opposite, but had enough curiosity to ask the doorkeeper of his own hotel who owned the mansion, for the extraordinary beauty and terror of the tall man who had arrived in the sedan remained in his mind even through other thoughts. He was told that both the houses opposite were empty, and only inhabited by a caretaker. It was believed they belonged to some noble who was always at Versailles; at least it was not supposed that they were for sale. Luc, considerably surprised, was drawn by this to give some attention to the house where he had last night observed the little scene through the first-floor window. It was, like the neighbouring mansion, closed and shuttered, and had an air of long desertion; no sign nor coat of arms nor any ornamentation distinguished it. It was neither large nor pretentious, boasted no courtyard, nor even a lamp over the plain door. It became clear to Luc that it was used for some intrigue, romantic, political, sordid, or commonplace, and that last night the lady, shaken out of long caution by her companion’s terror, had carried a lamp into a front room, forgetting that the shutters had been taken down. Luc would have thought no more of it, save that he could not easily dismiss the unusual beauty of the face upturned in the lamplight, nor the peculiar sick terror shown by a man, presumably on a gallant adventure, at the, after all, common enough sight of a coffin being carried through the streets.