Sedgely shrugged his shoulders with a pretense of utter bewilderment. "What must I do?" he inquired, blankly. "_Do?_" stormed Miss Lys. "_Do?_ Why, scour Paris till you find a violin precisely like that one George is doing his best to saw in half. Here! Clément is at the door with the trois-quarts. Tell him to drive you like mad to the Printemps--to the big place opposite the Grand Hotel--to the Louvre--to the Bon Marché--anywhere--everywhere! But inside of one hour I must have that violin!" When Sedgely returned, thirty minutes later, violin in hand, Ethel met him at the door. "They are all at tea," she said. "We'll call Pépin out." She placed the violin in the hands of the Vicomte without a word, and without a word Pépin took it from her. The instrument slid to his cheek as if impelled by its own desire. "Canst thou play?" she asked him. "No," said Pépin, "and, besides, it is but a toy. I do not want to hear it. But I like to feel it--here." And he moved his cheek caressingly against the cheap varnish. "Don't you think you might"--began Sedgely, and then found himself on the other side of the door, and Miss Lys facing him with an air of hopeless resignation. "I--act-u-ally--be-lieve," she said, with an effort at calm, "that you were going to ask him to thank me for it!" "Why not?" said Sedgely. "_Lord!_ What a man!" said Miss Lys. * * * * * In the dining-room of the de Villersexel apartment the Comte paced slowly to and fro, with bent head, and fingers that locked and unlocked behind his back. In the heavy chair before the fire, Pazzini seemed shrunk to but half his normal size, a mere rack of clothes, two lean white hands, that gripped the dragons' heads upon the arms of the fauteuil, and a pale stern face that looked into the smouldering embers, and beyond--immeasurably beyond. "How did it happen?" he asked, after a time. "Shall I ever know?" broke out de Villersexel irritably. "Pépin had been to a children's party below there on the entresol, at the English lawyer's. He and his imbecile of a bonne were entering the ascenseur. She goes from spasm to spasm, so there is no telling. But it seems they had given Pépin a toy--the English--and she wished to carry it and he refused. So between them--God knows how!--it slipped from their hands as the ascenseur cleared the gate--and Pépin stooped to catch it--and fell. He died at midnight." There was a long silence, broken only by the snapping of the logs in the fireplace and the almost inaudible footfalls of the Comte on the thick carpet. Then-- "He was his mother's son," said Pazzini. "And mine," replied the other. "The last of the de Villersexel." He paused abruptly by a little table, and took up a handful of splintered wood and tangled catgut.