“You were not at the fête last night,” she added. “I wished to present you to M. Amelot.” “Madame,” he answered, “I was there, but certainly did not see you.” The Countess leant a little way from the window of the coach; she had a gold and scarlet figured scarf round her dark, unpowdered hair. “What has happened?” she asked. “You look--strange.” Luc remembered that he had not been to bed that night, and was, despite his inner exaltation, feeling giddy and weary. Of late he could ill stand any fatigue; he recalled also the suicide that for the moment he had completely forgotten. “A man died this morning,” he answered gravely, “in the room opposite mine--died by his own hand, Madame.” “You must be so used to death,” she answered. She looked up at the house, and straight, as by a kind of instinct, at the drawn heavy curtains of the painter’s room. “Who was he?” she asked. “Why should I sadden you?” he answered. “And who the man was, no one knows.” “Oh,” she answered quickly, “it does not sadden me at all.” She smiled wistfully. “But you are very pale, Monsieur le Marquis.” Luc looked into her clear, ardent brown eyes, that were fixed on him with an eager and intense expression. A wave of faintness came over him; he felt impelled to catch at the long embroidered window strap that hung over the side of the coach door to prevent himself from falling. He could make no answer. “This is my message,” said the Countess, rather hurriedly and in a lowered voice: “I want you to come to my garden to-morrow about four o’clock. Knock at the door in the Rue Deauville--you remember that it is the street that runs at the end of the garden. You will know the door, for the knocker is shaped like a woman’s head.” Luc caught his breath; he was still feeling dizzy. His look was a question as to what she meant. “Do you care to come?” she said. “It is a question of politics.” “I am very honoured,” he answered formally. “You can be of use to me,” remarked the Countess. “I shall be grateful if you will come--but perhaps you are not leaving Versailles so soon?” “Yes,” he replied, “I was leaving immediately. Of course I will come, Madame.” She sighed and leant back in her coach. “Very well, Monsieur, the Rue Deauville.” Luc bowed, and the sumptuous coach rolled noisily down the narrow cobbled street. CHAPTER VI IN THE GARDEN Luc stood in the Rue Deauville before a flat, narrow door in the high wall behind which rose the tall poplars of Carola’s garden. He took the knocker in his hand and looked at it; it was, as the Countess had described, a woman’s head, smoothly cast in bronze, and the face had a reserved yet wild expression, a look of terror and bitterness.