"_Oui, monsieur._" "Did you have much talk with him?" "Much, monsieur." "Pardon my indiscretion, mademoiselle--it is military service, and I am an Intelligence officer--but did you tell him about your private affairs?" "Very intimately," said Jeanne. The Intelligence officer made a note or two and smiled pleasantly--but Jeanne could have struck him for daring to smile. "You had every reason for thinking him a man of honour?" "What's the good of asking her that, Smithers?" Captain Willoughby interrupted in English. "Haven't I given you my word? The man's a mysterious little devil, but any fool can see that he's a gentleman." "What do you say?" Jeanne asked tensely. "_Je parle francais tres peu_," replied Captain Willoughby with an air of regret. Smithers explained. "Monsieur le Capitaine says that he guarantees the honesty of the soldier, Trevor." Jeanne flashed, rigid. "Who could doubt it, monsieur? He was a gentleman, a _fils de famille_, of the English aristocracy." "Excuse me for a moment," said Smithers. He went out. Jeanne, uncomprehending, sat silent. Captain Willoughby, cursing an idiot education, composed in his head a polite French sentence concerning the weather, but before he had finished Smithers reappeared with a strange twisted packet in his hand. He held it out to Jeanne. "Mademoiselle, do you recognize this?" She looked at it dully for a moment; then suddenly sprang to her feet and clenched her hands and stared open-mouthed. She nodded. She could not speak. Her brain swam. They had come to her about Doggie, who was dead, and they showed her Pere Grigou's packet. What was the connection between the two? Willoughby rose impulsively. "For God's sake, Smithers, let her down easy. She'll be fainting all over the place in a minute." "If this is your property, mademoiselle," said Smithers, laying the packet on the chenille-covered table, "you have to thank your friend Trevor for restoring it to you." She put up both hands to her reeling head. "But he is dead, monsieur!" "Not a bit of it. He's just as much alive as you or I." Jeanne swayed, tried to laugh, threw herself half on a chair, half over the great cask, and broke down in a passion of tears. The two men looked at each other uncomfortably. "For exquisite tact," said Willoughby, "commend me to an Intelligence officer." "But how the deuce was I to know?" Smithers muttered with an injured air. "My instructions were to find out the truth of a cock-and-bull story--for that's what it seemed to come to. And a girl in billets--well--how was I to know what she was like?" "Anyhow, here we've got hysterics," said Willoughby. "But who told her the fellow was dead?" "Why, his pals. I thought so myself. When a man's missing where's one to suppose him to be--having supper at the Savoy?" "Well, I give women up," said Smithers. "I thought she'd be glad." "I believe you're a married man?" "Yes, of course."