"So much for the token of worn-out love!" she said. "If one of the gardeners finds it, he will pawn it at Devonport, and spend the money in drink. A worthy end for such a souvenir. Good-bye, Mr. Grahame." Bothwell bowed and left her; left her to crawl up to her bedroom like a wounded hind creeping to covert, and to fling herself face downwards on the floor, and lie there tearless, despairing, ready to invoke hell itself to help her in some kind of revenge, had she but believed in the devil. But Lady Valeria was an agnostic. She had not even Satan as a friend in the hour of trouble. CHAPTER XI. A FATAL LOVE. Monsieur Drubarde and his visitor descended the ladder, and entered the police-officer's apartment, which consisted of two small rooms, the outer an office and _salon_ combined, the inner a bedchamber, which Mr. Heathcote saw through the open door: a neat little bachelor's nest, with a velvet-curtained bedstead, and walls lined with portraits of every kind--engravings, lithographs, photographs. The _salon_ was decorated with the same style of art, diversified by engravings from newspapers, all representing notorious crimes. "The Murder in the Rue de la Paix," "Germinie Latouche stabbed in the kitchen of the Red Cross Restaurant by her lover, Gilles Perdie;" "The Arrest of Victor Larennes for the great forgeries on the Bank of France;" "The Escape of Jean Bizat, the parricide." Art had represented all these scenes with due dramatic fervour. They were hardly pleasing subjects in the abstract; but to Félix Drubarde they were all delightful; for they recalled some of the most interesting and most profitable hours of his life. He was gratified to see his guest looking at those stories of crime, in artistic shorthand.