"I swung round with a great desire to get away from the appalling scene, and as I did so, I noticed a girl in a doorway struggling in the grip of a powerful, swarthy-faced man of middle age. In the fading light I caught a glimpse of her face, and I was out of the shadow and by her side like a sky-rocket. "'Let her go!' I said shortly. 'Before I mop out the gutter with you.' "The man turned on me. "'Who the devil----' "'That's enough!' "A Red Cap--a corporal in the Military Police--loomed into view, and with an imprecation the rough backed away from the girl, turned, and in a moment was lost in the gloom. I brought my eyes back to the girl who had confronted me in the red light of sunset, and I stood gazing at her dumbly, fascinated, but with never a word to say. She was burning with anger and shame, trembling like an aspen, too. "_It was Margot!_ "The girl glanced up at me, a look that set my heart throbbing. It was my first real sight of her since I had seen her that afternoon with Ombos. I had thought her pretty then, but there is a distinct gap between a pretty woman and a lovely woman, and she was as beautiful as a Greek marble. Indeed, but for the carmine of her lips, and long dark eyelashes, she might have been chiselled out of pellucid stone, for her skin was dead white. She was--or had been--beautifully and expensively dressed, and there was breeding and refinement in every line of her face. "'Don't you know me?' I said. "The girl looked at me intently. "'I know you, of course,' she said. "I won't waste time in trying to tell you what my thoughts and sensations were. Rather I will tell you instead, what I did. "It was some minutes later, and already we had started to walk slowly back in the direction of the Rue Bar-le-Duc. "'And now you want to know--' she said. "'Yes--that's it--what's become of Ombos ... and the bronze statue?' "Margot looked up at me, and a strange melancholy transformed her face.... She was at a loss for words.... 'Poor Ombos--oh, poor, cranky Ombos,' she muttered. 'One morning I found him dead in his room, with all his wonderful, brown, powdery-looking books. He was leaning on a table over an old volume that he was fond of.... And then the doctors came. He had died, they afterwards said, of failure of the heart's action.' "'Dead,' I murmured mechanically.... "'Then everything was very uncomfortable. But I saved a good sum of money, and I sent most of the valuable things to Paris to be sold--no living soul coming forward to make any claims. Ombos left everything to me ... bonds, securities, and all. Come this way--I have a little room up the side-street. "'He left me well provided for. He----' "'Yes; but why on earth do you stay in this dead city,' I broke in. "'Sssh!... Don't interrupt unless I ask you questions. "'I'll tell you all about everything. It's extraordinarily difficult....' "I waited.