This laugh, loud but not jolly as it was intended to appear, routed Clemenceau's solemn thoughts. It seemed, like Pan's, from a statue, which gleamed in a vista, still to reverberate when the inventor went back to the house. At the upper windows gleamed lights which moved to and fro, and shadows flitted across the openings; it was the usual bustle when guests are packing up, and the idea of the too quiet and lonely house, of the morrow saddens the observer. A woman's form darted across the lawn and made the master start. It came along easily, and he saw that it was one familiar with the grounds. "Hedwig!" It was the servant who had run out to the stables to see that the horses were put to the carriage. "Stop a minute! we are in privacy here, and I want to have a word with you." The girl paused, intimidated and almost frightened; she lost color as she stood, agitatedly, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, and averting her eyes from the speaker. A thief caught in a felonious act would not have presented a more damning spectacle. "Not only are we breaking up the household, Hedwig, but the house is going to other hands. The mistress and I will live in a hotel at Paris for some time, on account of my changed business relations. Consequently, we must dispense with your services. Madame will, on grand occasions, have a professional hair dresser in, and so--in a word, I must ask you to please yourself about returning to your own country, or seeking another situation in this one. You can refer to Madame for a character; for, I believe, you have always served her faithfully. But you need not look to her for a present, too. Here is a couple of hundred franc notes by way of notice. I wish you well wherever you go." To the amazement of the speaker, instead of accepting the token of kindness, Hedwig suddenly put both hands behind her back, and stood confounded. Tears silently flowed down her cheeks; then, falling on her knees, she sobbed: "Oh, master, I do not deserve this! Oh, master please forgive me! I am a very wicked girl!" "What are you about?" he exclaimed, fearing that the unexpected boon had crazed her. "Do get up!" "No, no; not before master forgives me!" moaned she. "Oh, yes, yes--anything!" aiding her to rise. But she continued weeping, and with the fluency in the illiterate when they have long brooded over a speech to relieve their mind, she said: "You don't know what goes on, master! but I am forced to tell you now, since you are so good. I have always been in madame's service since we came out of Germany. I was devoted to her, and I knew her when I was at the Persepolitan Hotel, but devotion when women are concerned, becomes complicity.