Well, I was just going up to dress, for I had been detained by visitor after visitor, when at two o'clock another came before I could give my order, 'Not at home.' This was the Marquis de Croisenois, the brother of the man who twenty years ago disappeared in so mysterious a manner.

I hardly knew him at all, though of course we have met in society, and he bows to me in the Bois, but that is all." "And yet he called on you to-day ?" remarked De Breulh.
"Don't interrupt me," said the Viscountess.

"Yes, he called, and that is enough.

He is good-looking, faultlessly dressed, and talks well.

He brought a letter from an old friend of my grandmother's, the Marchioness d'Arlanges.