They ran down into the quaint little town which has scarcely altered since the days when Madame du Barry was dragged hence, screaming and wringing her hands, to Paris, to prison, and to the guillotine. Vanderlyn's distraught imagination saw something sinister in the profound quietude of the place; it was full of shuttered villas, for through the winter each village in the neighbourhood of Paris hibernates, those whom the peasants style les bourgeois still regarding country life as essentially a summer pastime. They now came to a high blank wall, broken by an iron gate. "This is the house, sir," said the chauffeur abruptly. Vanderlyn jumped out, and rang a primitive bell; he waited some minutes and then rang again. At last he heard the sound of steps hurrying along a gravel path; and the gate was opened by an old woman. "You have come to the wrong house," she said curtly, "this is Madame de Lera's villa." Then, as she caught sight of the Pargeters' chauffeur, a more amiable look stole over her wizened face,--"Pardon, perhaps Monsieur has brought a letter from Madame Pargeter?" She wiped her hand on her apron and held it out. Vanderlyn remained silent a moment; he knew that now had come the moment for him to utter an exclamation of surprise, to explain that he had thought to find Mrs. Pargeter here,--but his soul revolted from the lie. "Yes, I have come to see Madame de Lera," he said in a low voice. "Kindly give her my card, and ask her if she will be good enough to receive me?" The old woman turned on her heel; she led Vanderlyn into the silent house, and showed him into a large sitting-room where the furniture was still swathed in the rough sheeting with which the careful French housewife drapes her household goods when leaving them for the winter. "I will light the fire," said the servant, apologetically; "Madame does not use this room when we are here alone." "I am quite warm," said Vanderlyn quickly. "Besides, I shall only be here a very few moments." The woman gave him a curious, rather suspicious look, and went to find her mistress. Vanderlyn, in spite of the words he had just uttered, suddenly told himself that, he felt cold--cold and dizzy. He moved over to the window. It overhung a wooded precipice, below which sparkled the Seine,--that same river into whose dark depths he had gazed so despairingly the night before. Here, looking at the sunlit panorama of wood, water, and sky spread out before him, Peggy must often have stood. For the first time since the terrible moment when he had watched the train bearing her dead body disappear into the darkness, Vanderlyn thought of her as living; he seemed to feel her soft, warm presence in this place which she had loved, and where she had spent peaceful, happy hours.