leaving behind, as usual, a large crop of recriminations, charges
of incompetency and treachery, and a certain amount of scandalous

gossip. The banker (his wife's salon had been very Carlist indeed)
declared that he had never believed in the success of the cause.

"You are well out of it," he remarked with a chilly smile to
Monsieur George. The latter merely observed that he had been very

little "in it" as a matter of fact, and that he was quite
indifferent to the whole affair.

"You left a few of your feathers in it, nevertheless," the banker
concluded with a wooden face and with the curtness of a man who

knows.
Monsieur George ought to have taken the very next train out of the

town but he yielded to the temptation to discover what had happened
to the house in the street of the Consuls after he and Dona Rita

had stolen out of it like two scared yet jubilant children. All he
discovered was a strange, fat woman, a sort of virago, who had,

apparently, been put in as a caretaker by the man of affairs. She
made some difficulties to admit that she had been in charge for the

last four months; ever since the person who was there before had
eloped with some Spaniard who had been lying in the house ill with

fever for more than six weeks. No, she never saw the person.
Neither had she seen the Spaniard. She had only heard the talk of

the street. Of course she didn't know where these people had gone.
She manifested some impatience to get rid of Monsieur George and

even attempted to push him towards the door. It was, he says, a
very funny experience. He noticed the feeble flame of the gas-jet

in the hall still waiting for extinction in the general collapse of
the world.

Then he decided to have a bit of dinner at the Restaurant de la
Gare where he felt pretty certain he would not meet any of his

friends. He could not have asked Madame Leonore for hospitality
because Madame Leonore had gone away already. His acquaintances

were not the sort of people likely to happen casually into a
restaurant of that kind and moreover he took the precaution to seat

himself at a small table so as to face the wall. Yet before long
he felt a hand laid gently on his shoulder, and, looking up, saw

one of his acquaintances, a member of the Royalist club, a young
man of a very cheerfuldisposition but whose face looked down at

him with a grave and anxious expression.
Monsieur George was far from delighted. His surprise was extreme

when in the course of the first phrases exchanged with him he
learned that this acquaintance had come to the station with the

hope of finding him there.
"You haven't been seen for some time," he said. "You were perhaps

somewhere where the news from the world couldn't reach you? There
have been many changes amongst our friends and amongst people one

used to hear of so much. There is Madame de Lastaola for instance,
who seems to have vanished from the world which was so much

interested in her. You have no idea where she may be now?"
Monsieur George remarked grumpily that he couldn't say.

The other tried to appear at ease. Tongues were wagging about it
in Paris. There was a sort of internationalfinancier, a fellow

with an Italian name, a shady personality, who had been looking for
her all over Europe and talked in clubs - astonishing how such

fellows get into the best clubs - oh! Azzolati was his name. But
perhaps what a fellow like that said did not matter. The funniest

thing was that there was no man of any position in the world who
had disappeared at the same time. A friend in Paris wrote to him

that a certain well-known journalist had rushed South to
investigate the mystery but had returned no wiser than he went.

Monsieur George remarked more unamiably than before that he really
could not help all that.

"No," said the other with extremegentleness, "only of all the
people more or less connected with the Carlist affair you are the

only one that had also disappeared before the final collapse."
"What!" cried Monsieur George.

"Just so," said the other meaningly. "You know that all my people
like you very much, though they hold various opinions as to your

discretion. Only the other day Jane, you know my married sister,
and I were talking about you. She was extremely distressed. I

assured her that you must be very far away or very deeply buried
somewhere not to have given a sign of life under this provocation.

Naturally Monsieur George wanted to know what it was all about; and
the other appeared greatly relieved.

"I was sure you couldn't have heard. I don't want to be
indiscreet, I don't want to ask you where you were. It came to my

ears that you had been seen at the bank to-day and I made a special
effort to lay hold of you before you vanished again; for, after

all, we have been always good friends and all our lot here liked
you very much. Listen. You know a certain Captain Blunt, don't

you?"
Monsieur George owned to knowing Captain Blunt but only very

slightly. His friend then informed him that this Captain Blunt was
apparently well acquainted with Madame de Lastaola, or, at any

rate, pretended to be. He was an honourable man, a member of a
good club, he was very Parisian in a way, and all this, he

continued, made all the worse that of which he was under the
painful necessity of warning Monsieur George. This Blunt on three

distinct occasions when the name of Madame de Lastaola came up in
conversation in a mixed company of men had expressed his regret

that she should have become the prey of a young adventurer who was
exploiting her shamelessly. He talked like a man certain of his

facts and as he mentioned names . . .
"In fact," the young man burst out excitedly, "it is your name that

he mentions. And in order to fix the exact personality he always
takes care to add that you are that young fellow who was known as

Monsieur George all over the South amongst the initiated Carlists."
How Blunt had got enough information to base that atrocious calumny

upon, Monsieur George couldn't imagine. But there it was. He kept
silent in his indignation till his friend murmured, "I expect you

will want him to know that you are here."
"Yes," said Monsieur George, "and I hope you will consent to act

for me altogether. First of all, pray, let him know by wire that I
am waiting for him. This will be enough to fetch him down here, I

can assure you. You may ask him also to bring two friends with
him. I don't intend this to be an affair for Parisian journalists

to write paragraphs about."
"Yes. That sort of thing must be stopped at once," the other

admitted. He assented to Monsieur George's request that the
meeting should be arranged for at his elder brother's country place

where the family stayed very seldom. There was a most convenient
walled garden there. And then Monsieur George caught his train

promising to be back on the fourth day and leaving all further
arrangements to his friend. He prided himself on his

impenetrability before Dona Rita; on the happiness without a shadow
of those four days. However, Dona Rita must have had the intuition

of there being something in the wind, because on the evening of the
very same day on which he left her again on some pretence or other,

she was already ensconced in the house in the street of the
Consuls, with the trustworthy Rose scouting all over the town to

gain information.
Of the proceedings in the walled garden there is no need to speak

in detail. They were conventionally correct, but an earnestness of
purpose which could be felt in the very air lifted the business

above the common run of affairs of honour. One bit of byplay
unnoticed by the seconds, very busy for the moment with their

arrangements, must be mentioned. Disregarding the severe rules of
conduct in such cases Monsieur George approached his adversary and