said, with a smile as artificial as her own.

“Mrs. Sullivan Smith. She and Sullivan Smith are on their way home from Bayreuth; they are at the H�tel du Rhin. She wanted to know all about what happened in the Rue Thiers, and to save trouble I told her. She stayed a long time. There have been a lot of callers. I am very tired. I — I expected you earlier. But you are not listening.”

I was not. I was debating whether or not to show her Alresca’s letter. I decided to do so, and I handed it to her there and then.

“Read that,” I murmured.

She read it in silence, and then looked at me. Her tender eyes were filled with tears. I cast away all my resolutions of prudence, of wariness, before that