As he glanced at the little breakfast spread temptingly there for him on the terrace he was arrested by the sound of French voices in quick, agitated discussion, and looked up to see the unceremonious entrance of quite a little band of people who had in point of fact penetrated his seclusion. In a second of time a group was before him and he remembered afterward that certain figures in a twinkling assumed familiar shapes: the wine-shop keeper, his wife, one or two other patrons of the hôtel; but in the centre--he was sure of her!--pale and staring, stood little Simone, her big doll clasped in her arms. Before the gentleman could ask their errand Madame Branchard, eager to tell it, pushed forward. Bulstrode afterward, when he thought of the scene, could always distinctly see her important red face, sleek, oily hair, and in spite of summer heat the crocheted shawl over her cotton gown. "We decided at once to address to monsieur, who is so good"--(he was growing accustomed to the formula) "to monsieur who has been so like a father to the poor little thing. Not but that we are ready ourselves to do all we can for her--she is so sweet, so intelligent!" "The sweet, intelligent child" appeared, as Bulstrode's pitying gaze, never leaving her, saw, to have shrunk overnight. In their midst she stood of a ridiculous smallness, her big doll nearly hiding her and over its blonde head Simone's eyes peered pathetically into, as it were, a vague and terrifying world. Bulstrode asked shortly in the face of the theatrical prelude: "What is this all about? What have you come to tell me?" "Ah, monsieur!" Madame Branchard's voice, particularly suited to retailing the tragedies of the streets, quavered. "There has been a _malheur_--it is too horrible--the mother!" "Stop!" Bulstrode put out his hand. "Simone!" The little thing dragged herself to him with a new timidity, as though she believed him in league with the world against her. "Come," he encouraged, "come out here on the terrace, where you have so often played with your doll, and don't be frightened, _mon enfant_; everything will be all right." When he had so settled her in the smallest of chairs he went back to the other bit of Paris street-life which had seethed in to him. Madame Branchard, whom his manner had reduced to, for her, marvellous quiet and ease, approached impressively and lowered her voice as deeply as it would fall. "Mademoiselle Lascaze, whom monsieur knows has been my tenant for months past, is dead--dead, monsieur!" Bulstrode echoed, "Dead?" and his first thought was: "It was not she, then, whom I saw striving for entrance this morning. Ah, poor creature! Drowned?" "Monsieur then knows?" Knows--how should he know? He had thought of the aquarium and her often repeated feat.