"This is a strange and curious story you are telling me, Mlle.Vauquier.Now, how were they conducted?
How did you assist?
What did Mlle.

Celie do?
Rap on the tables in the dark and rattle tambourines like that one with the knot of ribbons which hangs upon the wall of the salon ?" There was a gentle and inviting irony in Hanaud's tone.

M.Ricardo was disappointed.

Hanaud had after all not overlooked the tambourine.
Without Ricardo's reason to notice it, he had none the less observed it and borne it in his memory.
"Well ?" he asked.
"Oh, monsieur, the tambourines and the rapping on the table!" cried Helene.

"That was nothing--oh, but nothing at all.