Of your charity, Madame, is this a night on which to leave a dog out of doors ?" A light of recollection leaped suddenly to La Boulaye's eyes, and with a sudden gasp he stooped to the hearth.
"But I cannot, Messieurs," the woman was saying, when the second voice interrupted her.
"I see your husband by the fire, Madame.

Let us hear what he has to say." The woman coloured to the roots of her hair.

She stepped back a pace, and was about to answer them when, chancing to glance in La Boulaye's direction, she paused.

He had risen, and was standing with his back to the fire.

There was a black smudge across his face, which seemed to act as a mask, and his dark eyes glowed with an intensity of meaning which arrested her attention, and silenced the answer which was rising to her lips.
In the brief pause the new-comers had crossed the threshold, and stood within the rustic chamber.