I turned again to the fire, saying: "What would the duchess think of that ?" I did not even know what I thought of it myself; of one thing only I felt sure---that what I had heard of Marie Delhasse was not all that there was to learn about her.
I was lodged in a large room on the third floor, and when I awoke the bright sun beamed on the convent where, as I presume, Mme.

de Saint-Maclou lay, and on the great Mount beyond it in the distance.

I have never risen with a more lively sense of unknown possibilities in the day before me.
These two women who had suddenly crossed my path, and their relations to the pale puffy-cheeked man at the little _chteau_, might well produce results more startling than had seemed to be offered even by such a freak as the original expedition undertaken by Gustave de Berensac and me.

And now Gustave had fallen away and I was left to face the thing alone.

For face it I must.