Pale as marble, and with a look of strained enquiry in her eyes, the young girl leaned back in her chair and appeared quite oblivious to all around her. Then slowly closing her eyes, she sighed deeply, and turning to her mother said:-- "Oh, but it is too terrible, it is too much." Thinking that she was about to collapse in a fainting fit, the doctor hastened to procure assistance. Quietly making his way through the open door, so as not to attract too much attention to his companions, he called two of the garçons; and telling one to carry some eau-de-vie to the ladies, he gave instructions for the other to have a fiacre ready. When he returned to the little table in the recess, the two ladies were nowhere to be seen. He enquired of the waiters, but they could give him no information as to where they had gone. The bill had been paid, but beyond that they knew nothing. Dr. Riche waited for some minutes, and at length prepared to leave the café. "Diable, mille diables!" he exclaimed. "If it was genuine then it was extraordinary, but if it was not genuine, it was a clever and a very interesting imposture. But the imposture sans motif? That would not be the 'sens commun.' The whole thing is very mysterious. I would give anything to find out where they live, but it is quite useless to hunt for them now. Just my cursed luck again." Picking up his gloves and cane in an abstracted and almost dazed manner, the worthy doctor, after glancing up and down the street, moved quietly away and joined the throng of promenaders. Doctor Riche was one of those bons viveurs who believe in comfort, and was always to be found on his visits to Paris at one of those snug and at the same time fashionable little hotels, much frequented by married couples, which abound in the neighbourhood of the Louvre or the Tuileries along the Rue de Rivoli. In the evening of the second day after his meeting with his old friend Villebois, he might have been seen settling his bill at the bureau of the Hotel Chatham, while a couple of porters were transferring his luggage to the fiacre. It was a lovely autumn evening when he left the hotel. A vapour had crept up the valley of the Seine, and hid its banks. A warm mist was rolling over the city, while here and there were gaps revealing the intense turquoise blue of the sky as the fiacre sped past the palace and gardens of the Tuileries and the avenue of the Champs Elysées, lined by rows of trees all decked in their multi-coloured foliage.