One long look she gave before she went to call assistance. And in that look she ascertained that the dead woman must have been of surpassing beauty, for the features were regular and perfectly formed; that she was between forty and fifty years of age appeared equally certain, now that powder and paint could hide the marks of time no longer. And Audrey crept downstairs shuddering, and wondering what fate was upon her, that a second and horrible calamity should happen in her experience within little more than six weeks. At the foot of the private staircase which led out into the street she was lucky in meeting Mademoiselle Laure, to whom she related, in faltering accents, the terrible experience she had just gone through. By this time, however, poor Audrey, giddy and faint with the scene she had gone through, could scarcely articulate, scarcely make herself intelligible to Mademoiselle Laure, who could or would speak no English. Audrey, indeed, spoke French well. But excitement either confused her utterance or affected her voice, for it was a long time before the Frenchwoman gathered the gist of her words. Then Mademoiselle laughed at her. “You dream, Madame,” she answered in her rapid French. “Such things do not happen. The busy day has got on your nerves, and you have imagined horrors which have no existence! Bah! A dead woman--all in white--lying upstairs! No, no. You want your dinner. That is all.” And she laughed, actually laughed, while poor Audrey, stupefied by this unexpected reception of her dreadful news, leaned back against the wall of the narrow passage for a few moments, unable to speak. At last, seeing that the Frenchwoman remained looking at her in a far from sympathetic manner, she roused herself, and staggering towards the door, said in a whisper:-- “I--I shall go for the police!” “For what?” echoed Mademoiselle Laure incredulously. “The police! A nice thing for the business that would be, _ma foi_! To have the police here, to hunt and turn the place upside down in their search for the effects of Madame’s weak nerves! The police! Oh, no. We will have no police here, be sure of that!” And the voluble Frenchwoman, with the same expression of mocking incredulity on her thin features, seized Audrey by the arm and held her as she would have gone out. But the younger woman had a will of her own too. “Mademoiselle,” said she, “you forget that I am the head of this business, the tenant of these premises, and that I have a right to do as I please.”