At last there came the sound of the front-door of the villa opening, shutting; and then those made by Pargeter's quick, short footsteps striking the marble floor of the hall, and echoing through the silent house. Vanderlyn stopped short in his restless pacing. He turned and waited. The door was flung open, and Pargeter came in. Quietly shutting the door behind him, he walked down the room to where the other man, with his back to the window, stood waiting for him. The three days and nights which had carved indelible lines on the American's already seamed face, had left Pargeter's untouched; just now he looked grave, subdued, but his face had lost the expression of perplexed anger and anxiety which had alone betrayed the varying emotions he had experienced since the disappearance of his wife. At last, when close to Vanderlyn, he spoke--in a low, gruff whisper. "Grid!" he exclaimed, "Grid, old man, don't be shocked! La d'Elphis says that Peggy's dead--that she's been dead three days!" Vanderlyn could not speak. He stared dumbly at the other, and as he realised the relief, almost the joy, in Pargeter's voice, there came over him a horrible impulse to strike--and then to flee. "There, you can see it for yourself--" Pargeter held out, with fingers twitching with excitement, a sheet of note-paper. "La d'Elphis wrote it all down! I didn't see her--she's ill. But this is not the first time I've had to work her in that way, and it does just as well. Her sister managed everything,--she took her in one of Peggy's gloves which I'd brought with me." Vanderlyn shuddered. He opened his mouth, but no words would come. Then he looked down at the sheet of paper Pargeter had handed him:-- "The person to whom this glove belonged has been dead three days. She died on a journey--alone. Think of the bridal flower,--it will guide you to where she now lies waiting for those who loved her to claim her." Pargeter laid one hand on Vanderlyn's arm--with the other he took out of one of his pockets a sheaf of thin slips of paper. The American knew them to contain accounts of accidents and untoward occurrences registered at the Prefecture of Police. Pargeter detached one of the slips and laid it across the sheet of paper on which Madame d'Elphis had written her laconic message:-- "Look--look at _this_, Grid! And don't say again I'm a fool for believing in La d'Elphis! I've had this since the day before yesterday; but I didn't bother to show it to you, for I didn't think anything of it--I shouldn't now, but for La d'Elphis! But do look--'the body of a young, fair woman found in a train at _Orange_,'--'the bridal flower,' as La d'Elphis says--eh, what?" But still Vanderlyn did not speak.