did. The interesting revelations of this charming lady have removed the

impression. The money you took from the estate, your questionable deals in America, your habits, put you outside the pale of decency, but the blackmail of the Duc with your own wife as stool-pigeon----"

Harry in a sudden blind fury that took no thought of consequences struck viciously, but Jim, who had been watching for the blow, warded it, tripped his brother neatly and sent him spinning against the wall where he fell and lay motionless. But he was unhurt--only bewildered by the result of his own incapacity.

"Get up!" Jim ordered. "Somebody will be coming along in a moment and we'll both be going with the police."

Harry saw reason in that and slowly got to his feet, pale, still trembling with rage, rubbing his hip joint, but subdued. The place they had chosen was in the shadow and the hour was late, and no one was about, but Jim Horton took a glance up and down the deserted street before he resumed his interrupted remarks.

"I don't want any man's uniform when it's been defiled. You ought to have known that. I'm going to take it off and give it back to you."

He saw the eager surprised look that came into Harry's face and raised his hand in warning--"But not yet. First I'm going to tell your wife the truth and then I'm going to warn the Duc de Vautrin."

Harry started back as though to dodge another blow, the reaction of his venture setting in with the terror of this information.

"Jim!" he whispered, clutching at his arm. "You wouldn't do that, Jim. My God! It's ruin to me--and you too."

"I'm prepared for that----"

"Don't, for God's sake don't! Wait. I've met you half way, haven't I? I'll do anything you say. I'll steer Quinlevin off and drop the thing. It was his idea--not mine. And he wouldn't have thought of it if the old man hadn't shut off the allowance----"

"Tell me the truth," Jim broke in sternly. "How much money did Quinlevin owe you?"

"Twenty thousand dollars----"

"And that was Moira's price----" contemptuously.

"I wanted her. I loved her. I swear to God I did. I love her now. I'd give anything to be able to go to her to-night----"

"You----! You forget what I know."

"It's the truth."

"How much were you to get of this money of the Duc's?"

Harry halted, mumbling, "That wasn't settled."

"Well, it's settled now," said Jim, with an air of finality, turning aside.

"What are you going to do?"

"Tell her--in the morning."

"You can't, Jim. Why, she'd go right to Quinlevin."

"I expect her to--and the Duke."

Harry leaned back against the wall, his fingers working at his trouser legs, but he was speechless.

"That's about all, I think," said Jim dryly. "Good-bye."

"Then you won't listen--not if I promise----"

"What----?"

"Anything. Why, you've got me, Jim. I can't do a thing with you ready to tell Moira--even if I wanted to. What's the use? It only means ruin for you. Wait a few days and we'll have another talk; just wait until to-morrow night. Give me a chance to think. I'll even--I'll even get out of France and go out West somewhere and make a fresh start. I will. I mean it. I did you a dirty trick once, but I'll try to square myself. Give me a chance. Think it over. Meet me to-morrow. I'm all in to-night. Promise you won't speak."

"No," said Jim, after a moment of deliberation. "I'll promise nothing, but I'll meet you to-morrow night at Javet's--at twelve--with the money."

Harry gasped a sigh of relief and straightened, offering his hand. "Thanks, Jim. To-morrow. And you won't tell her, I know. You couldn't. It would be too cruel. She'll suffer--my God! You know her. Can't you see how she'd suffer?"

"I--I didn't start this thing----"

"But you'll finish it, Jim. She believes in _him_, even if she doesn't believe in me. It will kill her."

He saw that he had made an impression on his brother. Jim stood silent, his head bowed.

"Don't tell her to-morrow, Jim," Harry pleaded. "Promise."

Jim shrugged and turned.

"All right," he said at last. "I'll sleep on it."

He turned away and walked slowly out into the dim light of the street, moving toward the Rue de Tavennes. He did not even turn his head to see what became of his brother. Already he had forgotten him. The heat of his passion had suffered a strange reaction. To resolve to tell Moira the truth, even to threaten to tell her was one thing, but to tell was another. And curiously enough Harry's picture of the consequences, drawn even in the stress of fear, was true enough--Jim knew it--was true. He knew her pride, her spirit. The revelation would kill them--and destroy her.

She was so dependent on him. She didn't know how greatly. And he had been until the present moment so dependent upon her. He realized what her visits had meant to him, how deep had been the joy of their evening alone in the studio. He did not dare to think of her now as he had been thinking of her then--for during the weeks of his convalescence and the culmination of their friendship to-night Harry had seemed far off, vague and impalpable. But their meeting had changed all this and he was thankful that he had had enough manhood to keep his wits when he had been alone with her. Moira--the pity of it--had given him signs (that he might read and run) that the mockery of the marriage was a mockery no longer. And it was her very confession of indifference and pity for Harry as she had known him, that seemed to give Jim the right to care for and protect her. He _did_ care for her, he was now willing to confess in a way far from fraternal. He had always been too busy to think about women, but Moira had crept into his life when he was ill and unnerved, needing the touch of a friendly hand, and their peculiar relationship had given him no chance of escape--nor her. She had captured his imagination and he had succeeded where Harry had not in winning her affection.

It was a dangerous situation and yet it fascinated him. The knowledge that he must cause her suffering had weakened his resolve for a moment, but as he walked into the Rue de Tavennes he saw it for the fool's paradise that it was. He would spend to-morrow with her--just to-morrow--that could do no harm and then--she should know everything.

He found his way into the court and up the stairs. The studio door was closed, implacable as the destiny that barred him from her.

He went into his room, closed the door and slowly undressed. Then lay on the bed, staring for a long while at the reflection of the street-lamp upon the ceiling: Moira ... happiness ... reputation--and dishonor. Or ... outcast ... but honorable.

*CHAPTER VI*

*YOUTH TRIUMPHANT*

But weariness and anxiety had to pay tribute at last and he slept. It was broad daylight when he awoke to the sound of a loud hammering upon the door and a high, clear, humorous voice calling his name.

"Lazy bones! Get up! Will you be lying abed all day?"

"A--all right----"

He opened his eyes with an effort and glanced at his wrist watch---- Eight o'clock.

"Coffee in the studio, Harry dear, in ten minutes."

"Oh! All right----"

The hammering stopped, foot-steps retreated and Jim Horton tumbled out, rubbing his eyes and gazing at the golden lozenges of light upon the wall. It was a most inspiriting _reveille_, arresting as the shrill clarion of camp on a frosty morning; but sweeter far, joyous with promise of the new day. It was only during the progress of his hasty toilet that the douche of cold water over his head and face recalled to him with unpleasant suddenness and distinctness the events of the night before, and he emerged from vigorous rubbing exhilarated but sober. There was a lot of thinking to be done and a difficult resolution to make, and with Moira at his elbow it wasn't going to be easy. But by the time he knocked at the door of the studio, the pleasure of the immediate prospect made ready his good cheer for the morning greeting. He heard her voice calling and entered. A new fire blazed on the hearth, and an odor of coffee filled the air. She emerged from the door of the small kitchen, a coffee-pot and a heaping plateful of _brioches_ in her hands.

"Good morning! I've been waiting for you an hour or more. You've been developing amazing bad habits in the hospital."

"Why didn't you call me before?"

"Sure and I believed you might be thinking I was anxious to see you."

"And aren't you?"

"And do you think I'd be telling--even if I was?"

"You might."

"And I won't. Will you have your coffee with cream and sugar?"

"If you please."

It was real cream and real sugar--some magic of Madame Toupin's, she explained, and the _brioches_ were unsurpassed. And so they sat and ate, Moira chattering gayly of plans for the day, while the ancient dowager upon the easel who had braved the Fokkers and the long-range cannon looked down upon them benignly and with a little touch of pity, too, as though she knew how much of their courage was to be required of them.

Horton ate silently, putting in a word here and there, content to listen to her plans, to watch the deft motions of her fingers and the changing expressions upon her face. Once or twice he caught her looking at him with a puzzled line at her brows, but he let his glance pass and spoke of casual things, the location of the bank where he must get his money, the excellence of the coffee, the kindness of Nurse Newberry, aware that these topics were not the ones uppermost in his mind, or in hers.

"You're a bit subdued this morning, Harry dear," she said at last, whimsically. "Maybe that goose was too much for you."

"Subdued!" he laughed.

"You have all the air of a man with something on his conscience. You used to wear that look in America, and I let you be. But somehow things seemed different with us two. Would you be willing to tell me?"

"There isn't a thing--except--except your kindness. I don't deserve that, you know."

She looked at him seriously and then broke into laughter.

"Would it make you feel more comfortable if I laid you over the shoulders with a mahl stick?"

"I think it would," he grinned.

"Sure and that is one of the few pleasant prerogatives of matrimony--in Ireland."

"And elsewhere----" added Horton.

"But I do want to know if anything's troubling you. Are you still worried----" she took a _brioche_ and smiled at it amiably, "because we're not appropriately chaperoned?"

"No--not so much. I see you're quite able to look out for yourself."

"And you derive some comfort from the fact?" she asked.

He looked at her, their eyes met and they both burst into laughter.

"Moira--you witch! But you'd better not tempt me too far."

"Sure and I'm not afraid of you, alanah," she said, sedate again and very cool, "or of any man," and then, mischievously, "But your doubts needn't have kept you from kissing me a good morning."

"It's not too late now," said Horton, abruptly rising and spilling his coffee. He passed the small table toward her but she held him off with a hand.

"No. The essence is gone. You'll please pick up your coffee-cup and pass the butter. Thanks. It's very nice butter, isn't it?"

"Excellent," he said gloomily.

"And now you're vexed. Is there no pleasing a man?"

"If you'd only stop pleasing--you'd make it easier for me to see a way----"

She was all attention at once, listening. But he paused and set his coffee-cup down with an air of finality.

"Stop pleasing! Sure and you must not ask the impossible," she said, her mouth full.

But he wouldn't smile and only glowered into the fire. "I want you to let me try to pay you what I owe you--to earn your respect and affection----"

"Well, I'm letting you," she smiled over her coffee-cup.

"I--I've gotten you under false pretenses--under the spell of a--a temporary emotion--a sense of duty," he rambled, saying partly what Harry might say and partly what was in his own heart. "I want to win the right to you, to show you that--that I'm not as rotten as you used to think me----" He didn't know how far the thought was leading and in fear of it, rose and walked away, suddenly silent.

"Well," he heard her saying, "I don't think you are."

Was she laughing at him? He turned toward her again but the back of her dark head was very demure. He approached quite close, near enough to touch her, but she held the coffee-cup to her lips, and then when she had drunk, sprang up and away.

"What's the use of thinking about the past or the future, alanah, when we have the present--with a gorgeous morning and happy Paris just at our elbows. _Allons_! You shall wash the coffee-cups and the pot while I put on my hat, for there's nothing like sticking something into a man's hands to keep them out of mischief. And then we'll be wandering forth, you and I, into the realms of delight."

He was glad at the thought of going out into the air, away from the studio, for here within four walls she was too close to him, their seclusion too intimate. If he only were Harry! He would have taken her tantalizing moods as a husband might and conquered her by strength and tenderness. But as it was, all he could feel beside tenderness was pity for her innocence and helplessness, and contempt and not a little pity for himself.

But the air of out-of-doors was to restore him to sanity. It was one of those late November days of sunshine, warm and hazy, when outer wraps are superfluous, and arm in arm, like two good comrades, and as the custom was in the _Quartier_, they sauntered forth, in the direction she indicated. There were to be no vehicles for them, she insisted, for _fiacres_ cost much and money was scarce. Life seemed to be coursing very strongly through her veins, and the more he felt the contagion of her youth and joy, the more trying became the task he had set himself. But sober though he was, within, he could not resist the spell of her enthusiasms and he put the evil hour from him. This day at least should be hers as nearly as he could make it, without a flaw. They turned down the Boul' Miche' and into the Boulevard St. Germain, past the Beaux Arts which she wished to show him, then over the Pont des Arts to the Right Bank. They stopped on the quai for a moment to gaze down toward the towers of Notre Dame, while Moira painted for him the glories that were France. He had lived a busy life and had had little time for the romances of great nations, but he remembered what he had read and, through Moira's clear intelligence, the epic filtered, tinctured with its color and idealism.

Then under the arches of the Louvre to the Avenue de l'Opera, and toward the banking district. All Paris smiled. The blue and brown mingled fraternally and the streets were crowded. Except for the uniforms, which were seen everywhere, it was difficult to believe that hardly a month ago the most terrible war in history had been fought, almost at the city's gates.

When he reached his bank, which was in the Boulevard des Italiens, near the _Opera_, Jim Horton had to move with caution. But Moira fortunately had some shopping to do and in her absence he contrived to get some checks, and going into the Grand Hotel drew a check signed with his own name, and payable to Henry G. Horton, and this he presented for payment. There was some delay and a few questions, for the amount was large--three thousand francs--but he showed the letters from Moira and Quinlevin. It was with a sigh of relief that he went out and met Moira near the _Opera_. With a grin he caught her by the arm, exhibiting a large packet of bank-notes, and led the way down the avenue by which they had come.

"And where now, Harry dear?"

"I'm hungry. To the most expensive restaurant in Paris for _dejeuner_. If I'm not mistaken we passed it just here."

"But you must not--I won't permit----"

He only grinned and led her inside.

"For to-day at least, Moira, we shall live."

"But to see Paris, _en Anglais_, that is not to live----"

"We shall see."

The tempting meal that he ordered with her assistance, did much to mollify her prudence and frugality and they breakfasted in state on the best that the market provided.

Afternoon found them back in the Boulevard St. Germain again, after an eventful interim which Jim Horton had filled, above her protests, in a drive through the _Bois_ and a visit, much less expensive, to a _cinema_ show, during which she held his hand. And now a little weary of all the world, but happy in each other, they drifted like the flotsam of all lovers of the _Rive Gauche_ toward the Gardens of the Luxembourg. They sat side by side on the balustrade overlooking the esplanade and lawn in front of the Palace, watching the passers-by, always paired, _piou-piou_ and milliner, workman and _bonne_, _flaneur_ and _grisette_, for the warm weather had brought them out. There was no military band playing, but they needed no music in their hearts, which were already beating in time to the most exquisite of interludes. Twilight was falling, the Paris dusk, full of mystery and elusive charm; lights beyond the trees flickered into being, and the roar of the city beyond their breathing-spot diminished into a low murmur. For a while their conversation had relapsed into short sentences and monosyllables, as though the gayety of their talk was no longer sufficient to conceal their thoughts, which, throwing off subterfuge, spoke in the silences. At last Moira shivered slightly and rose.

"Come," she said gently, "we must be going," and led the way toward the exit from the Gardens on the Boulevard St. Michel. Horton followed silently--heavily, for the end of his perfect day was drawing near and with it the duty which was to bring disillusionment and distress to Moira and ostracism and hell to him.

But when they reached the studio Moira set with alacrity at putting things to rights and preparing the evening meal.

"We shall be having cold goose and a bit of salad, you extravagant person," she said. "I feel as though I had no right to be eating again for a week."

And so they dined upon the remains of their feast, but warmed by the cheerful blaze, both conscious of the imminent hour of seclusion and affinity. Moira had little to say and in the silences Jim caught her gaze upon him once or twice as though in inquiry or incomprehension, and wondered whether in their long day together, he had said or done anything which might have led her to suspect the truth. But he had been cautious, following her leads in conversation, and playing his discreditable role with rather creditable skill. The end was near. He would see Harry to-night at Javet's and to-morrow he would tell her, but it was like the thought of death to him--after to-day--and he failed to hide from her the traces of his misery.

"I wish that you would tell me what worries you," she said gently, after a long silence.

He started forward in his chair by the fire. "Er--nothing," he stammered, "there's nothing."

"Yes, there is," she said, evenly. "I know. I've felt it all day--even when you seemed most happy." And then quickly, "Is it me that you're worrying about?"

"About you?" he asked to gain time, and then, grasping at the straw she threw him, "about--you--yes--Moira," he said quietly.

It was the first definite return to the topic of the morning, which they had both banished as though by an understanding. But Moira was persistent.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because--because I don't deserve--all this--from you."

She smiled softly from her chair nearby.

"Don't you think I'm the best judge of that?"

"No," he said miserably. "No."

"You can't deny a woman the faith of her intuitions."

"And if I proved your intuitions false----"

"Sure and I'd never speak to you again," she put in quaintly.

"It might be better if you didn't," he muttered, half aloud.

She heard him, or seemed to, for she turned quickly and laid her hand over his.

"Don't be spoiling our day, dear," she said earnestly. "God has been good in bringing you back to me. Whatever happens I won't be regretting it."

His fingers caught and pressed hers and then quickly relinquished them as he rose, struggling for his composure.

"You _will_ regret it," he said fiercely. "I tell you you can't thank God for me, because I'm not what you want to think me. I'm what the Harry you knew in America was, only worse--a liar, a cheat----"

He paused as she rose, saving himself the revelation on the tip of his tongue by the sight of her face in the firelight as she turned. It was transfigured by her new faith in him, and in her joy in the possession. She came to him quickly, and put her soft fingers over his lips, while the other arm went around his shoulders.

"Hush, alanah," she said.

"No--you mustn't, Moira," he muttered, taking her hands down and clasping them both in his. "You mustn't." And then, at the look of disappointment that came into her eyes, caught both her hands to his lips and covered them with kisses. Against the sweet allure of her he struggled, sure that never mortal man had been so tried before, but surer still that the love he bore for her was greater than all temptation.

She looked at him, flushed at the warmth of this formal caress, which left no doubt of him, but marveling at his renunciation of her lips, which had been so near.

"I can't be listening when you call yourself such names."

"You don't understand--and I can't tell you--anything more just now. I haven't--the will."

He noted the look of alarm which was a token of the suffering he must cause her and he led her to his chair and made her sit.

"I can't make you unhappy--not to-night. I--I'm sorry you read my thoughts. I shouldn't have let you see."

He had turned to the fire and leaned against the chimney piece. And after a moment, clear and very tender, he heard her voice.

"You must tell me everything, alanah. I've got the right to it now."

He shook his head in silent misery.

"But you must."

"No. I can't."

"Yes. You see, things are different with us two. You've made me know to-day how different. Last night I called to your mind the mockery we'd been through, calling it marriage. But it _was_ a marriage, and the dear God has willed that my heart should beat for you as gently as that of any mother for its babe. It softened in the hospital, dear, when I saw you lying there so pale and weak against the pillows, and I knew that if God spared you for me I would make amends----"

"_You_--make amends----" he gasped.

"By giving you all that I had of faith, hope and charity. Whatever you were, whatever you are, dear, you're mine, for better or for worse, and I believe in you. And your troubles, whatever they are--I'll take my half of them."

"You can't----" he groaned.

"Not if they concern me," she continued simply, "for they're mine already."

He took a pace or two away from her.

"You mustn't speak to me like this."

"And why not? You're mine to speak to as I please. Is it that you don't love me enough, alanah?"

He knew that she wouldn't have asked that question, if she hadn't already seen the answer in his eyes.

"Love you----?" he began, his eyes shining like stars. And then suddenly, as though their very glow had burned them out, they turned away, dull and lusterless. She watched him anxiously for a moment and then rose and faced him.

"Well----" she said softly, "I'm waiting for your answer."

"I--I can't give you an answer," he said in a colorless voice.

"Then I'll be giving the answer for you, my dear, for I'm not without eyes in my head. I know you love me and I've been knowing it for many days. And it's the kind of love that a woman wants, the love that gives and asks nothing." She paused, breathing with difficulty, the warm color rising to her temples, and then went on gently, proudly, as though in joy of her confession. "And I--it is the same with me. I've tried to make you understand.... It is not for you to give only...." She halted in her speech a moment and then came close to him, her clear gaze seeking his. "I love you, not for what you have suffered, dear----" she whispered, "but for what you are to me--not because you are my husband, but because you are _you_--the only one in all the world for me."

"Moira," he whispered, tensely, as his arms went about her. "God forgive me--I worship you."

"God will forgive you that, alanah," he heard her say happily, "since I do."

He touched his lips to her brow tenderly ... then her lips.

"You love me," he muttered. "_Me_? You're sure that it's _me_ that you love?"

Her eyes opened, startled at his tone.

"If it isn't you that I love, then I'm sure that I can't be loving any one at all."

"And you'll believe in me--whatever happens?"

"I will----" she repeated proudly. "Whatever happens--since _this_ has happened to us both."

"Some day--you'll know," he muttered painfully, "that I--I'm not what I seem to be. And then I want you to remember this hour, this moment, Moira, as it is to me.... I want you to remember how you came into my arms when I hadn't the strength to repel you, remember the touch of my lips in tenderness--and in reverence--Moira ... that love was too strong for me ... for it has made me false to myself ... false to you...."

She drew away from him a little, deeply perturbed. "You frighten me, alanah."

"I--I don't want to. To-morrow----" he paused, searching for strength to speak. But it did not come.

"To-morrow. What do you mean?"

The repetition of the word seemed like a confirmation of his resolution and shocked him into action. Quietly he took her hands down from his shoulders, kissed them in farewell, and turned away.

"What do you mean?" she repeated.

"That--that to-morrow--you shall judge me."

The tense expression of her anxiety relaxed and she smiled.

"You needn't fear what that will be."

He did not reply but stood staring fixedly into the fire. She came around to him and laid her fingers over his. "Why should we bother about to-morrow, dear? To-day was yesterday's to-morrow and see what's happened to us."

"But it shouldn't have happened," he groaned, "it shouldn't have happened."

"Then why should I thank God for it----?"

"Don't----"

"Yes. Everything will be right. A woman knows of these things."

He smiled at her tenderly, but he didn't attempt to take her in his arms.

"Come," she said, "let us sit down by the fire near the blaze, and we will not speak of to-morrow--just of to-day and yesterday and the day before, when you and I were learning this wonderful thing."

But he did not dare.

"Moira, I--I've got to go out for awhile--a matter of duty----"

"Now?" she faltered.

"I must. An engagement. I'm in honor bound----"

Now really alarmed, she caught him by the elbows and looked into his eyes.

"An engagement--to-night! And to-morrow----?"

His meaning seemed to come to her with a rush.

"Harry----! This engagement to-night has something to do with us--with me. To-morrow----! What is it, Harry? Speak!"

"I can't. I've promised."

"I won't let you go, Harry. It is something that has come between us----"

"It has always been--between us----" he muttered.

She clung to him and held him as he moved toward the door.

"Nothing--nothing shall come between us. Nothing can. I don't care what it is. 'Until death us do part'--Don't you understand what that means, Harry?"

The repetition of his brother's name, the phrase from the marriage service, gave him resolution to avert his face from the piteous pleading in her eyes.

"It is because I understand what it means that I have--the courage to go--now--before you despise me."

"I have said that nothing makes any difference. I swear it. I love you, dear. There's some mistake. You'll never be different in my eyes, whatever happens--whatever has happened."

"Good-bye, Moira," he whispered, his hands clasping her arms.

"No, no. Not now--not to-night. I knew that to-day was too beautiful to last. You--you've frightened me. Don't go--_please_ don't go."

"Yes," he said firmly. "I must."

But she was strong, and greater than her strength was her tenderness.

"Look me in the eyes, dear, while I'm pleading with you. If your love were as great a thing as mine----"

To look in her eyes, he knew, was fatal. One brief struggle and then he caught her in his arms and held her close for a long moment, while he whispered in broken sentences.

"My love! ... if you hadn't said that! You've _got_ to know what my love means ... sacrifice.... This moment ... is mine.... Remember it, dear--as it is ... its terrible sweetness--its sanctity--remember that, too ... because that's the essence of it ... sanctity. God bless you, Moira--whatever happens----"

"Whatever happens?"

As in a daze he straightened and looked around. Then almost roughly broke away from her and rushed to the door, taking up his cap and overcoat on the way.

"Harry----!"

"Good-bye," he called hoarsely as he opened the door and went out.

She rushed after him but he was already running furiously down the stairs into the dark.

"Harry," she called, "Harry--come back!"

But the name of his brother made him rush on the more blindly, the echoes following him down into the court and past the open gate of Madame Toupin. He hadn't any definite idea of what he was going to do. The only thing that he was sure of was that he must get away--anywhere--away from Moira ... from the reproach of her innocent eyes, of her confessions, of her tributes of submission and surrender. On he plunged blindly down the street toward the Luxembourg Gardens, into the outer darkness where he must lose himself away from her--to-night, to-morrow,--for all time.

He had failed. He had trusted himself too far--trusted her too far. Fool that he was not to have seen that love, begun by trivial happenings, had been gathering strength and momentum and like an avalanche had swept down and engulfed them both. In a moment of reaction, of guilty triumph, he rejoiced, defiant of the conscience that drove him forth, that it was him that she loved--not Harry; his lips that had taken tribute--his ears that had received her confessions, meant for them alone.

But reason returned after awhile ... and with it the sense of his dishonor. The thing was over, definitely. There would be scorn enough in her eyes for him to-morrow, when he told her all the truth. He comforted himself with that thought and yet it brought him a pang too, for he knew that it was Moira who was to suffer most.

He seemed to be the only person in the gardens, for the night was chill and a thin mist of rain was falling. From time to time there were footsteps here and there, and the murmur of voices, and through the turmoil of his thoughts he was conscious of them vaguely. But they meant nothing to him. He went on into the darkness, his head bowed, in the conflict of his happiness and his remorse, reaching a dimly lighted spot near the Rue d'Assas, when he heard quick footsteps behind him. He turned just in time to dodge the blow of a stick aimed at his head, which fell heavily on his shoulder. He struck out but another man caught him around the waist, bearing him to the ground. He struggled to one knee, striking viciously, but they were too many for him. He got a glimpse of an automatic pistol which flashed before his eyes and then something heavy struck him on the head. The last thing he noted before losing consciousness was the pale face of the man with the automatic. It was his brother--Harry.

*CHAPTER VII*

*AWAKENING*

Moira moved about in a daze, attempting in the commonplaces of the daily routine to forget the thought of the revelation which she knew could not be long delayed. She had lain all night on the divan in the studio, listening and waiting for the return of the soldier, and at last, toward daylight, from sheer exhaustion of mind and body, had fallen asleep. When she awoke, her first impulse was to go to the room in the hallway and knock. She opened the door. The bed had not been occupied.

Slowly, thoughtfully, she went back to the studio and the business of preparing the coffee--for herself--and for Harry--when he should arrive. Her mind was filled with strange doubts,--not of him, because she had learned to have a complete, a perfect faith in this soldier that she had married, who had left New York under a cloud of uncertainties and suspicions and had come back to her spiritually reborn. The doubts in her mind were those that he had purposely created in it, and fragments of phrases that he had uttered in their moments of tenderness came back to alarm and disturb her, because if he hadn't thought it necessary to alarm and disturb her, he would have remained silent and permitted himself to enjoy with her the hours that had been theirs together. Yes ... there was something that had come to thrust itself between them--some impediment to their union. She smiled softly at the memory of the restraint in his caresses, the purity of his smile and the gentleness of his abnegation.... He had underestimated the quality of her new faith in him.

Was this shadow out of the past? Perhaps. But it wouldn't matter. Together they would exorcise it. Only the future mattered now--their future together.

She stopped for a moment in her work of putting the studio to rights and listened. She thought that she heard a step upon the stair. She waited a while and then went to the door and peered out. No one. It _was_ a little cruel that he had not sent her a message--a note, a _petit bleu_ even, telling when she must expect him, whatever his appearance might bring. For this, she realized, was the "to-morrow" of which he had spoken yesterday ... the day of revelations....

She tried to sing at her work but the effort was a failure. A morbid fear of the thing that was to happen, if it hadn't already happened, obsessed and held her. Nine--ten o'clock--eleven.... With a courage born of desperation she went into her room and put on her hat. It was insupportable, the suspense. There were some things to buy. She must order them. And leaving word with Madame Toupin that she would return within the hour, she walked briskly forth, breasting the keen air and trying to smile. But even her walk was a failure, and in a short while she was back, eagerly questioning Madame Toupin. No, Monsieur le Lieutenant had not arrived. No doubt he was busy about the ceremony of the presentation of the medals. Moira inquired and Madame Toupin showed her an article in the paper about the honors to be given both French and American officers next week in the Place de la Concord. There was his name, "Henry G. Horton--Croix de Guerre." Madame Toupin let her have the paper and she ran up to the studio, where she read it eagerly, thrilling with pride.

Of course he had his reasons for not coming to her and telling her everything. She must be patient--her faith in him unwavering. He would come to her to-night again--and whatever he told her was to make no difference in her love and faith in him--whatever he told her--she swore it.

* * * * *

Late that night he came. She had built a fire of fagots against the chill of the night and was sitting in the big armchair by the hearth when she heard a knock at the studio door. With a cry of welcome she rose and rushed to greet him, throwing herself impulsively into his arms.

"Harry," she gasped happily, "at last!"

She couldn't help noting the slight movement of recoil before her tenderness. Then, bending his head,

"Hello, Moira," he muttered.

She helped him off with his overcoat and led him over to the fire, making him sit in the big arm-chair. He obeyed awkwardly, as one in a daze, his brows frowning. The light was uncertain, but what she saw alarmed her.

"Harry! What has happened to you?" she cried, catching him by the hands and holding them. "You're ill--your fingers are cold--you look as though---- What has happened?"

"Nothing," he murmured with an attempt at a smile. "Nothing at all." But even the smile was different, as though the muscles acted in obedience to an effort.

She had struck a match to make a light.

"What--what are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm going to see what's the matter with you. You look sick. You need medicine."

"No," he protested. "I'm just tired. A drink of whisky if you've got one----"

She went into Barry Quinlevin's room and brought forth a bottle, a glass and a pitcher of water. With a hand that trembled a little, he poured himself a drink and took it at a draught, and then gave a gasp of relief. She had sat down near him and was regarding him with an expression of intentness and eagerness, though the pucker at her brows indicated a doubt and a fear. The gas light was at his back and she could not clearly see his face, but there was something strange about him that she had missed at his first entrance, a brooding sullenness, remote, self-centered, that even the smile could not temper with sweetness. And even while she watched he poured out another glass of whisky.

"What is it, Harry?" she asked. "Tell me."

"It's nothing," he said. "I'm all in, I've had some worries. I'll be all right.'

"Have you had something to eat?"

"Yes. I'm not hungry."

His voice too ... thin, weary, somber.

Now greatly alarmed, she caught his hand in both of hers.

"You must tell me everything, Harry. I don't care what it is--I--I've got to know. You told me that you'd tell me to-day--to-night, and now you must keep your promise. I've tried so hard not to worry and--and when you didn't come back to me last night, I--I was really frightened----"

"Were you?" he said, with a frown. "I was all right."

"I'm glad. But it was cruel of you not to send me a message."

"I couldn't. But I'm here now, Moira. So there's no need worrying any more."

He put his hand over hers and leaned toward her. His words, which last night would have given her happiness, seemed somehow to mean nothing to her to-night. For his very presence in this condition was a threat against her peace of mind. And his fingers might have been wax for all that their touch meant to her.

"You--you're trying to make things seem better than they are," she said steadily, wondering at her own words. "I--I'm not easily deceived. Last night I knew that something had come between us. I know now that it's still between us, Harry, whatever you say."

He turned away toward the glass at his elbow,

"No," he murmured, "that difficulty--has been removed."

He couldn't repress the smile of triumph as he took his drink, and she saw it. It wasn't a pleasant smile.

"Come," he went on more easily, "aren't you glad to see me?"

"I--God knows whether I am or not. Something has happened to you--to me.... You've been through something terrible--since yesterday--something that has burnt the soul of you. What is it? What is it? The touch of your fingers--your voice, they come from a distance-like, with nothing of you in them. Am I ill that I should be thinking of you so? Take me in your arms, Harry, and shield me from this terror that you're not yourself, but some one else."

He obeyed, putting his arms around her and holding her close to him. But at the touch of his lips to hers, she struggled free and faced him by the hearth, pale as death. The look of bewilderment at her brows had intensified into a steady gaze, almost of terror at the thought that had suddenly mastered her. And yet she did not dare give utterance to it. It was so outlandish, so mad and incomprehensible.

She saw the frown of anger, quickly masked in a smile of patience as she broke away from him, and that confirmed her in her madness. She was reading him keenly now from top to toe, missing nothing. And the thought that dominated her was that the man with whom she had mated during the past weeks, the man who had passed through the shadow of death, reborn in body and spirit, the Harry that she had recently learned to love--was dead; and that this man who had come to take his place--this man--was what he might have been if God's grace had not fallen on him. Madness? Perhaps. And yet how otherwise would the touch of his lips, which last night she had sought in tenderness, have been so repellent to her? Harry--her husband--unregenerate--the same Harry that....

She kept her gaze fixed upon him and she saw his look flicker and fade.

If this reality was Harry, her husband, then were all the weeks that had passed since she found him in the hospital merely a dream, was yesterday a dream--last night?

"I--I don't know--what is the matter," she said at last, passing a hand across her brows. "I--I am not well, perhaps. But you--you're not the--not the same. I know it. The thoughts that I have of you frighten me."

He forced a laugh and sank into his chair again, lighting a cigarette with an assumption of ease.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

She only stood staring at him, her deep blue eyes never wavering from his face, which was still averted from the light. He met that gaze once--a second time, and then looked away, but still they stared at him, wide like a child's, but full of a dawning wisdom.

"You--you are Harry Horton--my--my husband?" she whispered in a kind of daze.

"Well, rather."

She paused another long moment as though on the verge of a difficult decision and then spoke searchingly.

"If you are Harry--my husband--then who--_who is the other_?"

Harry Horton started. "The other----?"

"The other--who was here with me yesterday, who was ill in the hospital at Neuilly, wounded--the hero of Boissiere wood?"

"Moira," he said, rising, "this is serious. There has been no other here."

"Yes," she repeated doggedly, "the other has been here--your twin----" The word seemed born of her necessity. "Your twin," she repeated.

He winced at the word and she saw the change in his expression.

"Tell me the truth of this thing," she went on quickly, "_he_ said yesterday that something was to come between us. It was _you_." And then, as he made no reply, "For God's sake, speak----"

He turned away from the light.

"I'm your husband," he muttered hoarsely.

"Show me your wounds," she gasped suddenly, reasoning with singular directness.

He glanced at her once, then bent forward. There upon the left side of his head in a shaved spot was a cross of adhesive tape. She touched it aimlessly with her fingers and then suddenly, before he could rise, with a quick deft movement tore it away from his skull. And quickly as he straightened she had seen enough.

There was no wound.

"What's this deviltry?" he muttered, his face an angry red.

But the look that he met in her eyes pierced all subterfuge.

"You have not been wounded," she gasped.

He leaned forward in his fury as though to strike her, but she stood up to him resolutely until the color faded from his face and he straightened slowly.

"Well," he muttered with a shrug, "I haven't." And then, folding his arms he found her gaze. "What of it?" he asked shortly.

She glanced down at the slips of adhesive tape and then let them fall through her fingers.

"I'm glad," she said coolly, "that you've decided not to carry on the lie----"

He laughed again. "Well, it looks as though it were hardly worth while."

Already all her thoughts were beyond him.

"Who--who is the other?" she asked at last, with a cold precision that might have come from a disembodied spirit.

He waited a moment before replying and then his tone matched her own.

"I can hardly wonder at your interest after the warmth of your greeting when I came in."

The shot told and she colored painfully.

"Who--who is he?" she repeated with an effort.

He smiled. "There's no harm in your knowing, since you've guessed the rest. He's my twin brother, Jim Horton."

"Jim," she gasped below her breath.

"We met in the confusion on the battlefield," he went on. "I had been shell-shocked and he put on my uniform to lead my men----"

"Shell--shock----"

"Yes. He took my uniform. It was a fool proceeding. When I came to, everything was in confusion. He would have been courtmartialed and shot if I had turned up, so I went back to the lines and came to Paris----"

"While he won you the Croix de Guerre. And you're going to step into his shoes----"

"They're _my_ shoes. It's not my fault----"

"And he--what's to become of him?"

"That's his lookout. He merely disappears from the scene."

She leaned heavily against the mantel shelf, breathing fast. But she had no reply, and so he went on unpleasantly.

"Now, perhaps you would like to explain."

"I have nothing to explain."

"Not the joy in your eyes when I came in? The kisses you gave me that you thought were for him?"

"I ask no forgiveness," she said in a hollow tone.

"Of course you thought he was your husband. And he let you think so."

"Yes. He let me think so," she repeated, parrot-like.

And all the while her horror of her situation increased--her anger at "the other" who had dared to place her in this false position.

She saw her husband's bony fingers clasp the chair arm.

"You were easily deceived," he went on. "It's hardly flattering to me. I would like to know----"

He stopped suddenly, his question in abeyance before the challenge in her eyes, aroused by the tone of his voice. She read his thought and answered him.

"He came here from the hospital night before last. He wanted to go to a _pension_ but I would not permit it----"

"That was kind of you. But I'm not blind. And your kisses for him were warm on your lips when you greeted me."

She paled and drooped in her shame.

"What have you to say about that?" he went on tensely. "Do you think that I'm the kind to stand by idly and see a man take my wife's kisses?"

"No. You're not," she answered slowly. "You've already answered me." And then, with a painful effort, "What have you done with him?"

He sank into the armchair with a laugh. "With _him_? Nothing. He has gone. That's all."

"I don't believe you."

"That's your privilege. He has gone. He thought he had gone about far enough. And I'm almost ready to believe that you agree with him."

"No," she stammered, pleading against her own will, against her outraged pride. "There was a reason for what he did--an honorable reason. There must have been."

"The marks of it are not very clear to me. If you can see anything honorable in trying to steal the love of one's brother's wife----"

He paused, for he saw the danger signals flying in her eyes, and tried to shrug his anger off. "What's the use? I'm no fool. Whether he tried to win you or not, it's clear that neither of you was over-scrupulous about me."

She didn't reply at once and when she did speak her words came slowly and with dignity.

"I don't know why it is that he should have kept silent about you. He has done me a hurt--irreparable. When I visited him in the hospital, it was _you_ that I visited, _you_ that I went to cheer, to take my place by your side. I thanked God when I saw you that you had grown to be--what you were, what I had wanted you to be. And I loved you for what you had suffered."

He started up from his chair.

"Moira----"

"Wait a moment," she insisted, still struggling to give her thoughts expression. "I want you to understand. I thought that it was you who had come back to me--as I wished you to come back--in honor and pride of your service of your country. And instead of you I find--another--with your wounds, your honors--if it was your brother--in spite of the false position he's placed me in--I honor him for those wounds as I would have honored you--and I honor him still more--because he has thought enough of his honor and of mine--to give up everything that he has won and gone out into the darkness--alone."

At this, Harry Horton's fury relaxed in a laugh. He poured himself out another drink.

"You can spare him these new honors."

She glanced at him keenly but he was too angry to notice.

"He went--away--because he had to," he muttered.

"What do you mean?"

"What I say. It was getting too hot for him."

The meaning under his words came to her slowly. She watched him for a moment curiously, leaning toward him, studying the ugly lines at lip and brow that he no longer took pains to conceal. And then she guessed at the truth.

"What have you done with him?" she whispered.

"N--nothing."

"You lie." She knew no fear of him now, and leaned forward, clutching at his shoulder. "You've dealt unfairly with him--you've----" She halted in terror of her thoughts.

"He got what he deserved," he muttered sullenly.

"What have you done?" she repeated.

"Put him where he won't mess in _my_ affairs again. See here, Moira," he caught her wrists and held her, "I'm just about fed up with this. I've been patient about long enough. You're my wife. And I'm going to keep you. Do you think after all I've suffered I'm going to stand for this kind of treatment now?"

"Let go my wrists--you're hurting me----"

"No----" Instead, he drew her closer to him. "I don't care about this foolishness with Jim. I think you can see that you've made a fool of yourself and of me. But I'm willing to forget it, if you'll do the square thing. I'm back here and I'm back to stay--and I'm going to make you love me whether you want to or not."

"Let me go, Harry."

"Kiss me."

"No." She struggled in his arms, but he only held her the more closely. "Moira. I want you. You're mine. You belong to me by every law----"

"No--no."

But he mastered her, pressing her throat back and kissing her upon the lips. She lay quiet in his arms, weak from the struggle. He took her immobility for acquiescence and caught her more tightly in his arms.

"Let me go," she gasped. "Do you hear?"

A saner man would have caught the warning note. But Harry Horton was beyond warnings. She fought with renewed strength and then, all else failing, struck him full in the face with her clenched fist.

His arms relaxed in astonishment and she sprang away, putting a small table between them.

Breathing rapidly, she saw him put his fingers to his cheek and then look at them in a bewildered way.

"I see," she heard him muttering to himself, "so that's the way of it----"

The blow brought him to his senses, and he stared at her for a moment as though at a person he had never seen before. Her eyes burned like a blue flame in the pallor of her face and the hand that clutched the table trembled violently. And yet it was not the fear of him that made her tremble, but the fear of herself and of the sudden dreadful awakening at the edge of the chasm that yawned between them.

*CHAPTER VIII*

*THREATS*

The silence seemed endless and yet she dared not trust herself to speak. Her throat closed and it seemed that the blood from her heart was drowning her. And yet she watched him tensely, aware of the crisis, aware too of the revelations that seemed to have laid her heart bare to all the world.

Her husband reached the large table and poured out what remained of the whisky. Then she heard his laugh again, and saw him leering at her over his glass.

"Lucky dog, I am. Pretty little devil to come home to. Love tap!" He shrugged and raised his glass. "To our better acquaintance!"

She made no sound, but while her eyes watched, her mind was working rapidly. His air was braggart, but she could see that he wasn't any too sure of himself. He had thought to come here and by the ruse of the adhesive plaster merge his identity into that of his brother Jim. The lapse of time since she had seen him and the illness had deceived her in the hospital. And so he had figured on the remarkable resemblance to his brother to help him carry off this situation with a careless hand. But he hadn't reckoned with the alertness of her woman's intuitions, or--God help her--the tenderness of yesterday, which held the image of the brother so close to her heart. Something of what was passing in her mind seemed to come to him.

"So you've fallen in love with my pretty brother?" he muttered.

"No."

"Complaisant husband--_mari complaisant_. You wanted Jim to take you in his arms--and you only had _me_. You don't care for my kisses. Why not? We're just alike--as like as two peas in a pod. What's the difference? Come now. Tell me. I'll be a good sport."

"We--we've got to come to an understanding----" she gasped at last desperately.

"Exactly--an understanding. That's what I'm getting at----" he laughed and sank into a chair by the lay figure. "Oh, don't be disturbed. I'm not going to try to kiss you again. It's too dangerous."

She watched him intently while he took out a package of cigarettes and lighted one. And then, with a wave of the hand, "An understanding--by all means. Fire away."

"It isn't necessary to go into the past, except to say what you know already--that our marriage was a horrible mistake. But we did have an understanding then--that you were to wait--that you were to--to make good--and that I was to try to--to care for you."

"Quite so. And we've both failed?"

"Thanks. We--we have both failed," she repeated. "I can't say I ever really believed we should succeed until----"

"Until you went to the hospital."

She bent her head. "The main thing is," she went on more evenly as she gathered courage, "that whatever my hopes were for you, now at least you've forfeited all claim to consideration."

"Why? Because I take a fancy to my own uniform--my own personality?"

"Because you----" she paused to catch her breath, "because you've stooped to something--something unworthy--something vile and terrible, perhaps--God knows, to get rid of a man--your own brother,--who did you a service; and because you'll dare to receive honors that don't belong to you." And then, as he started up, "One moment. I don't know what happened on the battlefield. If you were injured, it was a glorious--foolish thing Jim Horton did for you. But whatever he did and whatever his motive, it deserves something of you--something different from what you've confessed. Tell me what you have done with him and I'll try to believe you."

"He's quit, I told you," he protested. "There wasn't anything else for him----"

"Where is he?"

"What does it matter? He's out of your life--out of mine."

"No--not out of your life----" she paused.

"What do you mean?"

"Merely that the truth of this thing must be told."

"Impossible. It would ruin us both."

She gave a little gasp of relief.

"Tell me where he is."

"He's safe----"

She deliberated a moment.

"You've got to prove it to me. He said he was coming back to the studio to-day. Instead, you came--in the uniform he wore. He didn't give it to you willingly----"

"Yes," he lied sullenly. "He gave it to me. There wasn't anything else to do when I turned up. He realized he couldn't stay here--with you." And then, "Oh, he was square enough about it."

There was a long pause. He didn't ring true. She had almost forgotten, as he had, what he had said in the fury of his jealousy. She was aware that he had risen unsteadily from his chair and was approaching her.

"So here, Moira," he said in an ingratiating tone. "I'm not a bad sort--really I'm not. I--I was out of my head awhile ago--the way you came up to me, thinking I was him. I guess I wanted to hurt you--the way you had hurt me. I'm sorry. I won't touch your fingers even, if you don't want me to. I was a rotter to try to kiss you. I ought to have known you didn't want me to--when I--I had had one or two too many. I've been worried too--devilish worried about the whole thing. Let's forget it and talk the thing over sensibly. There may be a way out. I don't want any honors that don't belong to me, but I don't want to be dismissed from the service, either, or shot--on Jim's account. But we've got to keep this thing quiet."

She understood his drift. The facts in her possession made her dangerous.

"It can't be kept quiet, so long as Jim Horton is in danger."

"Who said he was in danger? I said he'd quit----"

"But you lied. He hasn't quit. He isn't the quitting kind. He was to have come to me to-day, and told me the truth--I didn't know what it all meant then. But I do now. He has got to have his chance."

She saw him glare at her somberly.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Take me to him--to-night."

"That's impossible. I couldn't find him."

"Yes. You can find him. Or he would have found me."

He smeared out the ash of his cigarette in a receiver and rose, his face livid.

"You seem very sure of him--and of yourself. And if I don't find him for you, what are you going to do?"

"I shall tell what I know to the proper authorities."

He stood for a moment balked and then before she knew what he was about he stumbled to the studio door and turning the key in the lock put it in his pocket. She was frightened by the significance of the action, and ran quickly toward the door of her own room. He turned and moved to intercept her but awkwardly and she slammed the door in his face, catching the bolt on the inside.

She was frightened now, desperately frightened, but resolved to escape and tell what she knew. The brother--Jim--was in danger--a prisoner somewhere--otherwise he would have come to her. Much as his silence had injured her, deeply as her pride was hurt at the position in which he had placed her, she knew now that he had intended to tell the truth from his own lips and warn her of Harry's return before he left her and went away alone. He loved her.... It was his love that had sought to spare her the humiliation of this very knowledge that had come to her. Shell-shock! There was another reason for the substitution. What? But whatever it was, there seemed little difficulty in choosing between them. The other--Jim--the man she loved ... she acknowledged it in every impulse ... would have come to her. She had to find him. Just what she meant to do she didn't know, except to get away from Harry. He was hammering on the door now--pleading with her. But she didn't answer. Catching up her hat and a heavy coat, she went quietly to her own door into the hall, and, while he still hammered and pleaded, fled quickly down the stairs and into the lodge of the _concierge_.

Madame Toupin, aroused suddenly from her doze, started up in amazement.

"Madame Horton, what is it?" she asked in French.

"It is a game we play, Madame Toupin. You shall hide me in your closet. And when Monsieur le Lieutenant comes you shall say that I have run out into the street. You understand?"

"_Parfaitement, Madame. Ah, les jeux d'amour. Entrez vite_." And she opened the door of the closet which Moira entered quickly.

Then Madame Toupin with a smile of wisdom composed herself to read her paper. And in a moment a clatter of boots upon the stairway and the sound of footsteps upon the paving of the courtyard announced the approach of the officer. Through a crack in the door Moira listened to the conversation which Madame conducted with her amiable smile, and presently Harry Horton withdrew frowning and went out hurriedly into the Rue de Tavennes.

But while she stood upright in the closet listening, Moira had formulated a plan. It was clear from the tone of Harry's voice and his haste to go that her escape had frightened him. For his judgment was not amiss when he decided that Moira was fully capable of carrying out her threat to tell the whole story to the military authorities. But instead of clinging to her original intention, a new idea had come to her.

If she followed him, she could perhaps get a clue to the mystery of Jim Horton's disappearance. She couldn't understand yet--couldn't make herself believe that this man that she had married could be capable of a thing so vile. But the evidence--his own words stammered in his fury, were damning. The familiar formulas seemed to have no bearing now. The war had made men demi-gods or devils and Harry.... It did not seem very difficult to decide to-night what Harry was.

She slipped on her heavy coat and the hat she had brought and with a word of explanation and caution to Madame Toupin, she went out into the street. Far down upon the opposite sidewalk she saw a tall figure striding away into the darkness. She followed, keeping at a distance, her coat collar turned up and her broad-brimmed hat pushed well down over her eyes. She hurried along, keeping in the shadow of the opposite side of the street, trembling with the excitement of her venture and wondering what was to be its outcome, but sure from his gait that the situation she had created had developed in Harry Horton's hazy brain some definite plan of action. She noticed too that he no longer swayed or stumbled and that he glanced furtively to left and right at the street corners, peering back toward her from time to time. But she matched her wits to his, crouching into corners as he turned and then running forward breathlessly in the dark places, keeping him in sight. He turned into the narrow reaches of the _Rue de Monsieur le Prince_, past the _Lycee_ and the _Ecole de Medicine_, and crossed the Boulevard St. Germain into the network of small streets in the direction of the river, twisting and turning in a way which confirmed her belief in the dishonesty of his purposes. It was now long after midnight, and the streets into which they moved were quiet and almost deserted. From the direction of the _Boule' Miche'_ came a rumble of vehicles, the glare of lights, the distant grunt of an automobile-horn, the clatter of a cab horse down an echoing street. The neighborhood was unfamiliar to her, a part of old Paris near the _Isle de la Cite_, where the houses, relics of antiquity, were huddled into ghostly groups, clinging to one another, illumined fitfully by murky bracket-lamps which only served to make their grim facades more somber and fantastic. Dark shapes emerged from darker shadows and leered at her--evil figures, bent and bedraggled, or painted and bedizened, the foul night-creatures of the city, the scavengers, the female birds of prey, the nighthawks, the lepers. Twice she was accosted, once by a vile hag that clutched at her arm with skinny talons, and again by a man who tried to bar her way, but with a strength born of her desperation she thrust him aside and ran on, her gaze seeking the tall figure that she followed.

More than once she lost sight of him as he plunged deeper and deeper into the maze and she paused trembling in the shadows, not knowing which way to turn, but gathering courage again hurried on to catch the glint of a street light on his brown overcoat in the distance.

Above the roofs, almost hanging over her, she caught a glimpse of the grim towers of Notre Dame, the sentinels of a thousand years of time, and the sight of them gave her courage in this region of despair. With an effort she threw off her terror of the evil that seemed to hang in every shadow, trying to remember that this was Paris, her Paris, with familiar places close at hand; and that this man whom she followed was no creature of the middle ages, but Harry, her husband; that this was the Twentieth Century, and that here was the very heart of the civilization of the world. But the facts that had come to her were amazing, and Harry's confessions damnable. It was clear that his position was desperate and his intentions none less so. Here somewhere, hidden, she believed, Jim Horton lay, helpless and injured, if not by his brother's hand by that of some one in his employ. It was the only answer to the riddle of his failure to come back to her. She must find him--before they took him away--before they ... Her thoughts terrified her again. Harry wouldn't dare. He was a coward at heart. She knew it now. Besides, there must be some spark of decency and manhood left to restrain him from so desperate, so terrible an expedient to save himself.

She crept cautiously to the corner of a small street into which Harry Horton had turned. It was scarcely more than an alley-way--a vestige of the old city, hedged in by squat stone houses with peaked roofs, deserted it seemed and unoccupied. Beyond she could see the _Quai_, the loom of the Hotel Dieu and Notre Dame. The house at which he had stopped was but a few yards from the river front. She stole into the blackness of an angle of wall and watched. He was knocking upon the door--three quick taps followed by two slower ones. For awhile he waited impatiently and then, as no one answered the summons, he tried the window and then started up a small passage at the side not twenty feet from where she crouched.

Her pulses were throbbing violently, but the terror of her surroundings had passed. And she tried to convince herself that she did not fear Harry.... And yet she hesitated to confront him, fascinated by her discovery.... The brother--Jim--was here--she was as sure of it as though she had seen him. She knew that she must intercede in some way, but she was very helpless. How many were there in this house? And if she revealed herself, would not the warning give them time to carry out whatever plan they had in mind? And so she crouched watching, breathless and uncertain.

She saw him go back to the door and repeat the knock more loudly, cursing under his breath and, calling a name at the key-hole.

"Tricot!" he called. "Tricot! Tricot!"

And in a moment she heard a sound at the door, which was opened a few inches.

"_C'est moi, Tricot_," she heard Harry say, and then the door was opened wide, giving her a glimpse of a short man with tousled hair and a diabolic face, holding a lantern.

"_Oh, Monsieur_----" growled the man with the lantern, stepping aside as Harry Horton entered. And just as Moira sprang up, her husband's name on her lips, the door was closed and bolted. She ran to it and then paused in uncertainty, trying to plan what it was best to do. She felt very small, very helpless, for the sight of the villainous looking man with the lantern frightened her terribly. He seemed to typify all the evil in all the world--to explain in a glimpse all that was sinister and terrifying in the disappearance of Jim Horton. An ugly creature of the world of underground, an _apache_! There were others like him here. And Harry....

There was no time to be lost. Her thoughts seemed to clear, her courage to return as she cautiously returned by the way that she had come--out into the wider street, up which she hurried, turning in the direction of the _Boule' Miche'_. Her one idea now was to find a policeman,--any one with a vestige of authority. Men she met but she shrank away from them as she saw what they were and what they thought she was. Ten--fifteen minutes of rapid searching without result and she turned toward the Quai and, failing there, over the _Petit Pont_ to the Island and the Prefecture de Police. It was curious that she had not thought of it before. The buildings were dark but she found at last a man in uniform to whom excitedly she told her story. He listened with maddening politeness and at last took her to an office where several other men in uniform were sitting around a stove. More alarmed than ever at the passage of time, she told her story again. Here she seemed to make some impression at last, for an older man, who sat at a desk, finally aroused himself and gave some orders. And in a few moments with two of the policemen she was leading the way back to the _Quai St. Michel_. She was almost running now in her eagerness so that the men had to take their longest strides to keep up with her, but more than ten minutes had already passed, it seemed an eternity to Moira, and there was still some distance to go.

"What was the name this man spoke at the door?" asked one of the policemen.

She told him.

"Ah, Tricot! _Parbleu_! I think perhaps, Mademoiselle, that there may be some reason in your anxiety."

"You know----?"

"An _apache_ of the old regime, Mademoiselle. We would do well to find him."

And so, explaining her fears, but not yet revealing all the reasons for them, she led the way down the streets by which she had come and to the house which Harry Horton had entered.

The older man knocked loudly upon the door. There was no response. Again. Silence. The other man went up the alley way on the side and called to them. There was a shutter and a window open. Without hesitation, he drew a weapon and crawled over the sill, the other man following, leaving Moira alone. She listened, as they moved about inside, saw the glint of an electric torch and then heard the bolts of the door shot back and the police officer calling to her.

"Enter, Mademoiselle," he said, when she had come around. "You are sure that this is the house?"

"Yes, Monsieur."

"There is no one here. The house is deserted. It is a street of deserted houses."

"That is impossible----" she stammered. "With my own eyes, less than an hour ago, this Tricot met the other at the door."

"_Allons_! We will search a little further, then."

She followed them up the rickety stairway and then they found evidences of recent occupation--two pallets of straw--some food--a bottle containing absinthe.

"Mademoiselle, you are right. This bottle is not yet empty. There's something suspicious here."

And now moving with more rapidity they explored the house thoroughly, descending at last into the cellar, with, weapons drawn, Moira, half-hoping, half-fearing, following just behind them, her gaze searching the shadows. The place smelled of the earth and the walls were damp to the touch, but a quick examination with the torch showed the marks of many foot-prints in the earthen floor. The astonishing feature of the cellar was its size, for it seemed to extend under two houses, and its vaulted ceiling of rough stone of great antiquity was upheld by huge piers, that might at one time have supported the walls of a great edifice. At first they could make out nothing but a litter of papers, bottles and packing cases, but as the torch of the police officer searched the shadows in a distant corner, they heard his exclamation of astonishment. There was another pallet of straw here covered with rags and quite distinctly there came to their nostrils the odor of chloroform. Moira peering over the shoulders of the man with the light saw him bend over and pick up a rag and examine it carefully. There were dark stains upon it. And then with another exclamation he picked up some pieces of rope.

"Some one lay here but a short while ago," he muttered positively, "tied hand and foot. The bed is still warm."

"They can't have gone far then----"

"But the door was bolted on the inside----"

"The window----"

"There would hardly have been time, is it not so, Mademoiselle?"

"I don't know," whispered Moira in dismay. "Is there no outlet to this place? There must be. The light, Monsieur--yonder, in the corners beyond the stone-work----"

The man with the torch, his professional instincts now thoroughly alive, obeyed. They sounded the walls, first one side and then on the other, coming at last, in the further corner, toward the river, upon a stone arch over some steps leading into a dark opening. The man who held the light suddenly extinguished it and a warning sound came from his lips.

"Listen," he whispered.

Scarcely able to breathe, Moira obeyed. From the passage-way at a distance, there came the sounds of voices.

"Come, follow me, Dupuy! Mademoiselle had better remain."

And with that, turning his light into the dark hole, he descended, the other following. But the thought of remaining alone in this terrible house frightened her and she clutched at the hand of the second policeman.

"I dare not stay here, Monsieur. I must go with you."

"_Bien_. But I warn you it may be dangerous."

And yet what could be more dangerous than remaining in the cellar of the _apache_, Tricot? With shaking limbs she followed down the passage, stumbling and clinging to the shoulder of the gallant policeman. The man who led them disappeared beyond a turn in the passage, but they reached it and as they turned the corner felt the chill of the night air beating in their faces. And in a moment they came out on the shore of the river near a boat landing.

"_Tonnerre de Dieu!_" shouted the man with the light, and started running toward the steps that led to the Quai above. The other had reached the boat landing and stared for a moment down into the dark mists above the river. Then he ran up the steps after his companion.

Frightened and mystified, Moira followed up the steps where after a moment the two men joined her.

"We have missed them. We were too late----"

"But the captive--the prisoner," pleaded Moira, in an agony of apprehension.

"That's the point--the prisoner," said the younger man. "Wait a moment, Mademoiselle."

And he ran down the steps to the boat landing again, peering eagerly down the stream. Already far away, merely a blotch in the shadows beyond the Pont Neuf, there was a boat at the Quai du Louvre.

"_Vite_, Dupuy. There may be yet time."

And the two of them started running toward the distant bridge, leaving Moira to follow as fast as she could.

When Moira reached them on the opposite side of the river, breathless and almost dead of apprehension, they were questioning a man on the Quai du Louvre. He reported that a man had attempted suicide by drowning and that a woman had saved him just as he was about to leap into the water. She herself had asked his assistance and together they had hailed a passing _fiacre_ in which the woman had driven away.

"Did you notice anything extraordinary about the rescued man?" questioned Dupuy.

"Nothing, except that he was very pale. Also that there was an odor of chloroform on his clothing."

"Chloroform! Are you sure?"

The man shrugged. "You may smell for yourself."

And he extended a hand and arm upon which the odor was unmistakable.

She heard the officer take the address of the witness and then turn to her.

"Mademoiselle is no doubt weary. There is nothing more that can be done to-night. If you will permit me to conduct you home."

A woman? Who?

Moira nodded in a bewildered way.

"A _fiacre_, Monsieur, if you please," she stammered. "I--I am very tired."

*CHAPTER IX*

*PIQUETTE TAKES A HAND*

As Monsieur Valcourt, the sculptor, had said, Piquette Morin was a _gamine_. She liked the warm nest in the Boulevard Clichy, with which the Duc de Vautrin had provided her, because it satisfied a craving for the creature comforts which she had been so long denied, and because it filled the hearts of other young women of her acquaintance with envy. But she was not happy. After all was she not young and had she not her life to live?

It was enough indeed to have grown in a few short years from a seller of flowers and a model for the figure into a lady of fashion, but her heart was still in the _Rive Gauche_ and there she went when she pleased, searching out her old haunts, and the companions of her days of want, with whom she could throw off the restraint of her gilded cage and laugh with an open throat at the ancient jests and dance her way again into happiness. Life she loved, all shades of it, from the somber in which she had been born to the brilliant artificial high lights of cafe and restaurant. All sorts of people she knew--cochers, bandits, dancers, poet-singers, satirists, artists, journalists, and she rejoiced in them for what they taught her of the _grande vie_.

Quite unhampered by morals of any sort, trusting entirely to her impulses, which were often good, the creature of her birth and surroundings, she was a pupil in the school of the world, speaking, after a fashion, three languages. She discovered that she had a brain, and the war had made her think. Without the help of the Americans, France must fall, and so when they came she rejoiced in their splendid soldierly appearance and the promise they gave of rescue and help for France. She met Harry Horton in the Taverne du Pantheon. He was quite drunk and didn't seem to have any Hotel, so she took him to the Boulevard Clichy in a _fiacre_ and put him to bed. According to her own lights, it was the only natural, the only decent thing for her to do.

Thus it happened that Harry Horton found himself, to his surprise, on excellent terms with a friend of the Duc de Vautrin, about whom Barry Quinlevin had been writing him, the source of the Irishman's income. In a reckless moment he confided to Piquette Barry Quinlevin's secret. And as the Duc de Vautrin had provoked her that afternoon by refusing her the money for a hat that she particularly admired, she turned against her patron, entering with interest into a plan which eventually seemed to promise much. That she repented of her disloyalty the next day when Monsieur de Vautrin relented was a disappointment to Harry Horton, who saw a way in which she could be useful to him. Also, Harry Horton was sure that he had talked too much, for it was hardly safe to make a confidante of a weathervane.

When Harry Horton left Paris to join his regiment, Piquette shrugged her pretty shoulders and in a few days he was only a memory. He had been her _bel ami_, but ... _enfin_, even in the _Quartier_, one got drunk like a gentleman.

The meeting in the restaurant of Leon Javet came at an opportune moment. The Duc had again developed a habit of meticulous inquiry; also, for reasons of his own, had reduced her allowance. The familiar figure in brown was pleasing after the day of labor in the studio of Monsieur Valcourt. He represented a part of life that she could not taste--and this very morning she had read of him in the bulletins as the hero of Boissiere wood. And so she had welcomed him in her joyous way, sure, in spite of his deficiencies, that their friendship had been no mistake. A hero. _Saperlotte_! Of course she was glad to see him.

But the reserve in his manner had mystified her. He was like another man. He was quieter, finer, gentler and yet very brave and strong. A little _triste_, perhaps, but more deep, more interesting, and touched with the dignity of one who faces death for a noble purpose. But Piquette had not lived in the streets of Paris all these years for nothing. A few months of warfare would not change a man's soul. What was this strangeness? What had come over him? He had packed her home in a _fiacre_, just when she was becoming most interested in this extraordinary transformation. She had never before suffered from pique, and it annoyed her that he shouldn't have been more eager to resume their ancient fellowship. Who was this unshaven fellow with the slouch hat and worn clothing who had so great a claim upon his attention? His figure too had a familiar look. His manner had been urgent--threatening even, and Harry had obeyed the summons, banishing her, Piquette, to the outer darkness of the Boulevard Clichy.

And he had not written her or telephoned. All day she waited in, expecting to hear from him, and expectation increased her interest and her disappointment. Also, meditation gave her a perspective. They were curious, these second thoughts, deepening the impression of a striking difference between this Harry Horton and the one who had gotten drunk in the Taverne du Pantheon. Idiosyncrasies that had escaped her during the few moments they had been together at Javet's, came to her now with startling clearness, the slow direct gaze, the deliberate motions of the hands, their touch on hers--and _parbleu_!

She started upright as a thought came to her like a _coup de foudre_. The twisted little finger he had broken that night at the Pantheon. It had bothered him only a few days and it had never been set. She remembered now the fingers of the right hand of the visitor on his wine glass at Javet's, remarking how strong they were. _The little finger was straight_!

It was curious that such a trifle should come to her with such significance. It was also curious that she hadn't noticed it at the time. Could she be mistaken? When night came and she had not heard from Harry she went out and made her way across the river, leaving word where she was to be found if the visitor called, and went straight to the cafe of Gabriel Pochard.

She and Gabriel were friends of long standing. Many years ago, when she was but a child-model for Fabien, Gabriel Pochard had posed around the studios with long hair, for prophets and saints. But he had married some money and opened the _cafe_ which bore his name.

It was not a beautiful place, and as she knew was frequented by persons not of the _vrai type_, the gamblers, the sharpers, the wealthy outcasts of all kinds, who knew a good omelette when they tasted one and relished a particular kind of seclusion. For here no questions were asked. It was at Gabriel Pochard's that Harry Horton spent much time, for he had come with a letter to Gabriel from Monsieur Quinlevin, who had known Pochard since the days of posing for the great Monsieur Gerome. It was here that she would find Harry Horton or news of him, and information which would perhaps answer the strange sequence of questions that had come rising to her mind. She had the French passion for the mysterious, the unexplainable, and with her own pride as the stake, she meant to leave no stone unturned which would help her to a solution of the problem.

She found Gabriel, wearing a sober air, busy with his bottles and the cafe was blue with tobacco smoke.

"All, _mon vieux_," she said in the argot. "You wear a worried look. Has Leon Javet been stealing away your customers?"

"Ah, _c'est toi, petite_! What brings you here alone?"

"_Ma foi_, my legs, if you would know the truth--and a woman's curiosity."

"_Tiens_! That is nothing new. How can I help you?"

"I want you tell me what you know of 'Arry 'Orton."

Gabriel frowned and glanced about him cautiously.

"Sh----," he said warningly. And then, in a whisper, "Who told you that Monsieur 'Orton was here?"

She laughed. "Did I not see him myself with my own eyes last night?"

"Where?"

"At Javet's." And then, in a meaning tone, as she looked him in the eyes, "Him--or another."

He glanced at her, his face, which still showed traces of great beauty, twisted unpleasantly, and then beckoned her to follow him through a door nearby into his office. And when they were seated, "What did you mean, Piquette?"

"What I said," put in Piquette, lighting a cigarette. "Him--or another." And then, as Gabriel's frown deepened, she shot straight at her mark. "There are two 'Arry 'Ortons, Gabriel Pochard," she said coolly.

The effect of her words on Gabriel was not lost on her. He looked around him furtively and caught her by the wrist.

"Who told you this?"

"It's true, then?" asked Piquette.

"Who told you?"

"My own eyes. The visitor at Javet's had no twisted little finger."

"And no one else has noticed?"

"Not so far as I am aware."

Gabriel Pochard gave a great gasp of relief.

"_Ma foi_, child, but you have sharp eyes!"

"If they weren't sharp, _mon vieux_, I would still be selling flowers outside the Cafe Soufflet. Tell me the truth of this thing, Gabriel," she said, settling herself in her chair with the air of one who has come to stay, "it is what I came here to find out."

He glanced at her, then frowned at the floor and shook his head.

"Oh, yes, _mon vieux_, you will tell me that it is none of my business," she said firmly. "_Eh, bien_, it is my business--my right to know." And then, as he remained silent, "You are aware that I am not one to be refused."

Gabriel rose from the chair at the desk and paced up and down the narrow apartment, but still he did not speak. And then at last, "What devil put it into your head to come here inquiring of this matter?"

"The devil himself--I----," she said with a gesture. And then, with a little shrug and a sober mien, "You may trust me, Gabriel."

He stopped and sat in his chair again.

"_Eh, bien_! As you have said. It is your right. But it is no matter to be breathed outside this room."

"It will not be the first time I have kept your secrets."

"I should not tell you."

"Speak----"

Gabriel Pochard shrugged. "Last night, late, a man came in here to see me, a man wearing old clothing and a three weeks' growth of beard. It was Monsieur 'Orton. He was very much excited and told me a remarkable story that rivals the tales of Monsieur Hugo."

"Yes, I understand. Go on."

"He said he was wounded upon the battlefield at night, when out of the darkness appeared just beside him the very image of himself. It was his twin brother, whom he had not seen for five years, a brother with whom he did not speak."

"Ah--it was what I thought----"

"The brother took from Monsieur 'Orton his uniform and went on, leading his men to victory. It was the fight of Boissiere Wood. You have heard?"

Piquette nodded.

"This interloper took Monsieur 'Orton's uniform, his rank and identity, and now comes back to Paris--to Monsieur 'Orton's own apartment, and Monsieur 'Orton's wife----"

Piquette had started to her feet, her fingers grasping the shoulder of Gabriel.

"His _wife_!" she broke in.

"_Parfaitement_, his wife," repeated Pochard. "You did not know?"

"He never told me," she stammered. "Who----?"

"The daughter of my ancient friend, Monsieur Barry Quinlevin," said Pochard with a shrug.

"You're sure?"

"As certain as I sit here, _ma petite_."

Piquette sank into her chair, frowning deeply.

"Go on," she muttered.

"They had met last night on the street in the dark. Monsieur 'Orton demanded of his brother to relinquish his identity. He refused. Monsieur 'Orton came to me. It was an act of injustice. Monsieur 'Orton was outcast. Something had to be done. I helped him. _Voila tout_."

Piquette had been listening intently, thinking deeply the while. As Pochard finished, she searched his face keenly--her frown deepening.

"There's something at the back of this, Pochard. Tell me the rest."

Pochard hesitated, scratched his head and shrugged a. shoulder. "I do not like it, you understand. It has worried me all day--an American--a soldier. One cannot tell what would happen if the police----"

Piquette understood at once. Her fingers closed again over the arm of Pochard.

"What have you done with him?"

Pochard bent forward, whispering. "He lies in the house in the Rue Charron by the river. A knock on the head--_c'est tout_--and chloroform."

Piquette was silent, staring at the wall. Then she fixed her wide gaze on the conspirator.

"Bah! You are a fool, Pochard!" she shot at him. "They will catch you sure. How much?"

"Two thousand francs."

"And you get half," contemptuously. "Who did it?"

"Tricot and _Le Singe Anglais_."

"Tricot!"

Piquette got up and paced the length of the room, turning quickly.

"You are an idiot, Pochard," she stormed at him furiously. "An American! Don't you know what you have done? It is the hero of Boissiere Wood that you have struck down. An American--who has risked his life for you and me----"

"But Monsieur 'Orton----"

"He has lied to you. I do not believe----" She broke off, caught Pochard by the arm again and shook him. "When did this happen?"

"L-late last right----"

"And 'Arry 'Orton?"

"Was here--this afternoon----"

"Drunk----?"

Pochard shrugged. "No--not bad. He was in uniform."

"Where is he now?"

"I think he has gone to find his wife."

"His wife!"

Piquette sank into her chair, took out a cigarette and smoked rapidly for a moment. And then,

"What were you going to do with this--this twin brother?"

"I?" Pochard gave a gesture of abnegation. "Nothing. I am through. That is the affair of Monsieur 'Orton."

"All, _mon ami_, but you can't wriggle out so easily. You've received money--blood money----"

Pochard put his hands deep in his pockets and extended his long legs, frowning at the floor.

"I am sorry now. It is a bad business----"

"The man is safe?"

"So far, yes----"

"But Tricot?"

"He waits for orders."

Piquette ground her cigarette under her heel and rose abruptly with an air of decision.

"This American must be liberated at once!"

Pochard rose and faced her. "It's too late," he growled,

"No. It's not too late. I know the sort that Tricot is--with the river just there--at his elbow."

"I can do nothing. That's what worries me. Tricot and _Le Singe_ will look after their own skins now."

"You mean," she paused significantly. "The Seine----"

He nodded somberly.

"It is the solution of many problems."

She caught him by the shoulders and shook him.

"But not of _this_ problem. You understand. It will not do. I will not have it."

"You," he laughed. "What can you do?"

"You shall go with me now--and liberate him----"

He took her hands from his arms roughly and turned away. "No," he growled, "not I. Have I not told you that I am through?"

"Yes. You will be through, when the police come to find out what you know about the matter."

"They will not find out."

"Don't be too sure. 'Arry 'Orton is a fool when he drinks. He will betray you----"

Pochard scowled. "And betray himself----?"

"You can't be too sure."

"I can't. But I must trust to luck."

Piquette stamped her foot.

"I've no patience with you." And then, "You will not liberate him?"

"No. I refuse to have anything more to do with the matter."

"You will regret it."

"Perhaps. That will be my own lookout."

She stared at him in a moment of indecision, and then with a shrug, turned toward the door into the cafe.

"You are an idiot, Gabriel."

Pochard grunted as he followed her.

"You will say nothing?"

"_Naturellement_," scornfully. "I am not an informer. But I should like to knock you on the head too."

She put her hand on the knob of the door.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"To the Rue Charron."

He caught her hand away from the knob and held her.

"You----! Why should you intrude in this affair?"

"It amuses me."

"I warn you that you will run into danger."

"They will not harm me."

"You must not go."

"Yes. I shall save you from the results of your cupidity--since you will not save yourself."

"I will not permit it----"

"You have nothing to say in the matter--since you've washed your hands of it."

She threw his hand off and opened the door.

"Piquette!" he called, but she went rapidly into the other room before he could intercept her, ran quickly out into the street and disappeared in the darkness.

She was throbbing now, deep with purpose. It was only in moments like these that life ran swiftly in her veins. The excitement of the venture was like a tonic, and she went on rapidly toward the _Boule' Miche'_.

As she walked she went over in detail the conversation she had had last night in the Cafe Javet. It was not surprising that she had not guessed the truth last night, for the new Harry Horton's information as to his brother's affairs had blinded her to the physical differences such as there were, between them. Perhaps it was the glamor that his heroism had thrown about him, perhaps it was his gravity, or perhaps the depth of his voice or the penetrating quality of his steady gaze, but she had not been able to deny all day a new and extraordinary appreciation of the newcomer, whose virtues, half guessed at, seemed to bring Harry Horton's deficiencies into higher relief. And the mystery of his sudden appearance and the strange tale of Gabriel Pochard provided the added touches to stimulate her interest in him. As she had told Gabriel, there was something back of this mystery of dual identity, and she meant to discover the truth. As to one thing she was resolved, the beautiful young soldier of the Cafe Javet should not die, if there was anything that she could do to prevent it.

Tricot was a bad one. So was _Le Singe Anglais_. Either of them was capable of anything. She was acquainted with them both, but she did not fear them, for she knew the freemasonry of their evil calling and had even been in the little room of Gabriel Pochard when they had discussed their business affairs. But this matter concerned a human being in whom she was interested. No harm should come to him. It could not be. She wanted him for herself.

And so at last, having decided that she must move with caution and leave the rest to chance and opportunity, she went toward the house in the Rue Charron. She had been there before some years ago with Gabriel Pochard, when the boat-load of champagne from up the river had been smuggled in. Thus it was that she knew the secret of the old passage to the river bank, hidden from the opposite shore by a barricade of old timber. So instead of approaching the house by way of the Rue Charron she went down toward the river and turned in to the Quai des Augustins. There were a few people about but she watched her opportunity and when she reached the steps descended to the boat landing, where she found herself alone and unobserved, hidden from the lights above by the shadow of the retaining wall. Here she paused a moment to think and plan. According to all the rules of the underworld the prisoner would be in the cellar of the house in the Rue Charron. But if Tricot or _Le Singe_ were taking turns guarding him there, her problem would be difficult. Because it meant a scene in which her persuasions and promises of immunity might fail, and Tricot could be ugly. Money? Yes, perhaps, if everything else failed. But she had a sense of pride in the belief that with luck favoring her she could accomplish this rescue alone.

At any rate she meant to make the attempt--and so, she found the end of the tunnel and with some difficulty and damage to her gloves and clothing, wrenched at the boarding. The timbers were old and rotten, as she knew, and it was not difficult to make a passage. It was so easy in fact that she began to believe that Tricot had more wisely kept his prisoner upstairs, but as she moved forward cautiously, one hand steadying her progress over the rough masonry, she caught the first dull glimmer of yellow light. As she came to a turn in the passage she paused a moment and then stole forward quietly, to the foot of the steps, peering up into the cellar.

At first she could see nothing but a litter of boxes, bottles and waste paper, and then coming up one step at a time, she searched the recesses of the cavern one by one. A smoke-stained lantern burned dimly near the foot of the flight of steps, leading to the floor above, but there was no sign of any one watching. And so she emerged cautiously from the dark hole and stood up. In a moment she found what she was looking for. Huddled in the corner to her right, she made out the contours of a human figure. With another quick glance toward the steps and a moment to listen for any sound above, she approached noiselessly. He was trussed with a rope from head to foot, his hands tied behind him. But he was the man she sought. She bent over him, noticing his heavy breathing and the odor of the drug. At the touch of her hand he stirred slightly and she saw the blood upon his face.

"Monsieur!" she whispered quickly, "it is I--Piquette--and I have come to help you."

He stirred again and tried to move, but the drug was heavy in his blood. So she shook him furiously, trying to arouse him.

"It is Piquette," she whispered again.

His lips moved and his eyelids fluttered open. "Piquette----!" he muttered, and then breathed stertorously.

This was encouraging. She shook him again and again, fighting the lethargy. He moved and groaned. It seemed almost certain that his guardians must hear him.

"Sh----," she whispered, "Silence!"

Meanwhile she was struggling with the knots of the cord that bound his wrists. At last she managed to get his arms free and moved them backward and forward with all her strength, trying to restore his circulation. Then she unfastened the cords at his feet and pulled his knees up, thumping him from time to time and whispering at his ear.

"Wake up, Monsieur! You mus' get out of dis wit' me----"

His lips moved again. "Who----"

"It's Piquette, Monsieur," she repeated, prodding at him and shaking his shoulders.

This time his eyelids opened wider, and he looked at her vaguely. But his lips muttered her name.

"You mus' rouse yourself--you mus'! We are going out of here--at once."

With an effort he struggled up to a sitting posture while she supported him, pinching his shoulders and arms. Then she saw for the first time an earthen pitcher on a stool nearby. There was still some water in it, and she threw it in his face. He sputtered and choked, but she silenced him.

"Quiet--for your life! Dey're upstairs, aren't dey?"

"Yes--upstairs. I--I'm weak as a cat."

"Naturally, but you've got to 'elp yourself. I can't carry you."

"Carry me--no----" He toppled sideways and would have fallen, but she caught him and held him, shaking and pinching him again.

"No. You've _got_ to wake up. Do you hear?" she whispered desperately. "They may come down 'ere at any moment."

A dim notion of what she was talking about seemed to come to him, for with an effort he threw off the heaviness that was coming over him again.

"You--Piquette--How did you----?"

"By an old passage from dis cellar to de river. You mus' go out dat way. Do you on'erstand me?"

He nodded feebly. "River----" he muttered.

There was another struggle against the drug and another, but at last she got him to understand. He was very weak, but managed to support himself with an effort, sitting upright, while Piquette ran over toward the foot of the steps and listened intently, for if Tricot and the Englishman were listening, they must surely have heard something of the commotion she had made. But there was no sound.

She went back to the injured man. Would he be able to walk? She shook him again and pointed to the way by which she had come.

"It is dere--in de corner--the way of escape. You mus' make de effort."

She helped him struggle to his knees, one of his arms around her shoulders, but when she attempted to get him to his feet, his knees gave out and he fell, dragging her down with him.

It was at this moment of failure, that a sudden clamor of knocking at the street door upstairs came, with terrifying clearness, to her ears. And the sound of a masculine voice calling the name of Tricot. There was no time to be lost, yet what was she to do? She was strong, but she could not lift the American bodily and he had collapsed again upon the floor. For an agonized moment she listened. A long silence and then the knocking was renewed, followed by the sound of another voice upstairs and the tread of heavy feet going toward the door. Desperate now, and aware that only the American's own efforts could save him, she lifted him again by sheer strength to his knees.

"Dey'll be down 'ere in a moment," she stammered in his ear. "You've got to help yourself. You've got to. Crawl--on your knees--toward de corner beyond de pillar. I will 'elp you."

He seemed to understand and struggled a few feet, paused in weakness, then struggled on again. And all the while Piquette was listening to the sounds upstairs, the voices which now seemed to be near the head of the stairway, coming to her ears distinctly.

"We've got to get him away from here--out into the country somewhere--and lose him." Harry Horton's voice.

"Why?" growled a voice in English.

"Moira Quinlevin knows the truth."

An oath from Tricot as the other translated.

"Who told her?"

"No one. She guessed it."

"Parbleu! We shall take no chances then."

"You must take him away--a cab--out into the country," said Harry's voice again.

"And leave him to recover and set the police on us? Not much. He'll have to go the long road."

"My God! No. Not that!" cried Harry.

"The river!" growled Tricot.

And then the other voice.

"You started this thing. And it's got to be finished. Did you bring the money?"

"To-morrow. But--I can't----"

There was the beginning of a violent discussion in which Tricot's advice seemed to prevail. Harry's opinions wouldn't matter much to these precious villains.

But Piquette had heard enough. It seemed that they were about to descend the stairs to the prisoner, and glancing backward she labored with the injured man until they reached the shadows of the pillar into which she pushed and dragged him until they were both hidden from the light of the lantern. But the steps into the passage were still ten feet away. Already there were footsteps on the stair, where one of the men stood, still arguing with Harry Horton. With a final effort, she urged the drugged man toward the opening and then tumbled him down into the darkness.

She heard the steps coming down the stairs, heard them pause and a voice again raised in argument. But she listened no more. The situation was desperate, for in a few seconds at the least, the escape of the prisoner would be discovered, so forgetting caution, she pinched and shook him, by main strength of her strong young arms, urging him forward. Something of the imminence of his danger seemed to come to him, for he crawled to the corner and then stumbled in some fashion to his feet, clinging to her. The air beyond the turn in the passage seemed to revive him and in a moment, swaying and struggling against his weakness, he stood outside the opening upon the river-bank, leaning against the wall, while Piquette thrust the boards across the opening.

She heard a cry now from beyond the passage and with the injured man's arm around her shoulders, led the way down the bank to the landing. He caught her intention. There was a boat there and she got him into it and pushed off from the shore into the stream. She was almost exhausted by this time, but managed to get out the oars and make some progress down the river before the timbers fell from before the opening in the wall and three men appeared--Tricot, Harry and the Englishman. She saw their shapes dimly in the shadow of the wall.

But a strange thing happened then. For the three figures went flying up the steps to the Quai and then ran as though for their lives in the direction of the Pont St. Michel.

But she managed at last to reach the Quai du Louvre, where with the help of a belated passer-by, she managed to get the man she had rescued into a _fiacre_ and so to the Boulevard Clichy.

*CHAPTER X*

*THE SAMARITAN*

When Jim Horton came to his senses after his rescue, he found himself in a small room overlooking a pleasant facade of gray stone, tinted softly by the pale morning sunlight. It was some moments before he managed to gather his scattered wits together and out of the haze and darkness in which he had been groping for two nights and a day, recall the incidents of his escape. Piquette! He remembered.... But what was this room? There had been a cab-drive late in the night--he had been carried up a flight of stairs ... As he turned in the bed he was aware of a figure which rose from the corner of the room and approached him. It was an oldish woman in the neat uniform of a maid.

She smiled. "Monsieur is awake?" And then, moving toward the door, "Madame shall come at once."

But when Piquette entered the small room, attired in a gorgeous pink lounging robe of silk and lace and wearing a boudoir-cap embroidered with silken flowers and golden thread, she dazzled him for a moment with her splendor, and he did not recognize her. She came forward to him quickly and laid her cool hand on his brow.

"Ah, _mon petit, c'est mieux_." And then, in English, "'Ow do you feel?"

"Better. But everything doesn't seem--very clear to me yet."

"_Naturellement_. You mus' 'ave some food and de doctor will be 'ere soon."

Jim Horton glanced about the small room.

"Would you mind telling me where I am?" he asked.

"Dis room is in de hallway adjoining my apartment----"

"You brought me here----?"

"Las' night," she said, with a smile, "an' a beautiful time we had getting you up de stair----"

"I--I remember--a man with a lantern--and then a struggle--with you helping--through a passage--to the river--a boat----"

"A _voiture_ an' den--here," she added as he paused.

He put out his hand and fingered the lace of her sleeve.

"Why--why did you do this for me, Piquette?"

She caught his hand, pressed it in hers, and then rose abruptly.

"What does it matter? You s'all talk no more until after de doctor 'as seen you. Sh----"

Later in the day after Jim Horton had slept again, Piquette visited him, dressed for the street. In a few words she told him how she had guessed at the double identity--then confirmed it, and then how she had discovered the means Harry Horton had employed to get his brother out of the way. She dwelt lightly on his rescue from the house in the Rue Charron and explained quite frankly her own relations with the criminals.

"_C'est la grande vie, Monsieur l'Americain_," she said with an expressive gesture. "You remember perhaps what Monsieur Valcourt 'as said. I am still de _vrai gamine_. I know dat _vilain_ Pochard since I am so high."

"But why have you done this for me, Piquette? When you found out that I was not my brother----"

"Oh, la, la! Who can tell? Perhaps I like' you a little de night in Javet's. De thought of de adventure--perhaps, but more dat Tricot and _Le Singe Anglais_--dey would 'ave t'rown you in de river, Monsieur."

"You saved my life----"

"Yes. You see, Monsieur--Monsieur," she paused in search of a name.

"My name is Jim Horton."

"Jeem! _C'est bon ca_. Jeem 'Orton, dere wasn' anyt'ing else for me to do. You were a good Americain--who 'ad fought at La Boissiere for France and for me. An' _he_ had not. It could not be dat you should die. But dere are many t'ings I do not yet on'erstand. If you would tell me----?"

Jim Horton was silent a moment, thinking deeply.

"You were a friend of my brother's."

He put it more in the form of a statement than a question.

"Yes, Jeem 'Orton," she said, "before 'e went to de front. Dat does not matter now, I can assure you. What 'appen' at Boissiere Wood, _mon ami_? Pochard tol' me what 'Arry 'Orton said----" And she related it as nearly as possible in Pochard's own words.

Jim Horton listened, smiling slightly, until she had finished. And then,

"I had intended to keep silent about this thing, Piquette. But I'm not going to keep silent now. I'm going to tell the truth, whatever happens to Harry or to me. He would have killed me----"

"No," she broke in. "I t'ink 'Arry was frighten' at what he 'ad done----"

"He wasn't too frightened to get those chaps to knock me in the head," he put in dryly, then broke off with a sudden sense of the situation. "I hope, Madame, that you do not care for him."

She had been watching him intently and now put her hand over his.

"No--no, Jeem 'Orton," she said carelessly. "But tell me de truth----"

He looked at her for a long moment.

"No one has a better right to know it than you."

And then, without ornamentation, he related the facts from the unfortunate moment that night when he had put on Harry's uniform and gone into the fight until he had met his brother in the Rue de Tavennes. She heard him through to the end.

"You 'ave not told me everyt'ing, Jeem 'Orton," And then, significantly, "About Madame--Madame 'Orton?"

He frowned and then went on with an assumption of carelessness.

"The situation was impossible, as you will see. I would have gone away----" he shrugged, "if Harry hadn't saved me the need of it. But now----"

He paused and clenched a fist. "He has much to answer to me for."

She was silent for a while, watching him.

"A coward! I might 'ave known," she murmured after a moment.

In the conversation that followed many things were revealed to Jim Horton, many things to Piquette. He learned from her own lips every detail of the story of Quinlevin's plot against the Duc and what was to be Moira's share in it, and he listened in anger and amazement. As to her relations with de Vautrin, she spoke with the utmost frankness. He was not a pleasant person, and to her mind, for all his money and position, possessed fewer virtues even than the outrageous Pochard and his crew, who at least were good-natured villains and made no pretenses. The Duc was stingy--cruel, self-obsessed and degenerate. _Que ca m'embete ca_! Why she had not cut loose from him and gone back to live in the _Quartier_ she did not know, except that it was comfortable in the Boulevard Clichy and she was tired of working hard.

He found himself regarding Piquette with interest. The type was new to him, but he liked her immensely. She might betray her Duc, but in her own mind she would have perfectly adequate reasons for doing so.

As to Moira, little enough was said. If she suspected anything of his tenderness in that quarter she gave not a sign of it. But he could see that the facts as to his brother's marriage had come as a surprise to her.

"An' now, Jeem 'Orton," said Piquette the next morning, when he had strength enough to sit in a chair by the window, "what are you going to do about it?"

He thought for a moment.

"You have given me my life. I should dislike to do anything that would give you unhappiness."

"As to that, _mon petit_," she said carelessly, "you s'all do what you t'ink bes'. You know perhaps dat to-morrow in de Place de la Concorde, your brother 'Arry is to receive de Croix de Guerre?"

He had forgotten, but the announcement had no effect upon him.

"It does not matter," he muttered. What he had been thinking in his moments of wakefulness was of Harry going to the studio in the Rue de Tavennes. Moira was his wife. Would she, like Piquette, learn at once of the deception? Or would she accept him...?

"You do not care for de honors you have won?" asked Piquette, breaking on his thought.

"They weren't my honors----"

"But you bear de wounds----"

"Yes, and they're proofs my brother will find it hard to answer. But tell me, Piquette, what you have heard. Do they suspect you of having carried me off?"

Piquette laughed. "No. I saw Emile Pochard las' night. 'E does not dare speak. Tricot, 'Arry, _Le Singe_--I saw dem at Pochard's. Dey t'ink you are a devil. It is de police worries dem mos'."

"The police?"

"Some one followed 'Arry 'Orton to de house in de Rue Charron and tol' de police. Dey came jus' as we escape'. Your brother was lucky to get away."

"Who could this have been?"

"I don' know. But what does it matter since you are safe?" And then, after a long pause, "No harm 'as been done except to your poor head. We mus' let de matter drop, Jeem 'Orton. It is better so."

"If that is your wish, Piquette----"

"Yes. It will be safer for us both, for you because you mus' keep in hiding--for me--because I 'ave a reputation at stake."

His eager look inquired her meaning.

"Emile Pochard would never trus' me again."

He laughed. "And you value the friendship of Monsieur Tricot?"

"No. But I know de law of de _apache_. It would not be pleasant to 'ave one's t'roat cut an' be t'rown in de Seine."

The true meaning of the danger that she had run for him gave Jim Horton a new and lively sense of his obligations and responsibilities to this strange creature. He caught her hand to his lips and kissed it warmly.

"How can I ever repay you?" he blurted out.

Her face flushed gently and she regarded him with eyes almost maternal.

"What a boy you are!" she laughed.

"But a stranger to you. To have run such risks--to have made such a struggle just because you knew I was helpless."

"It amuse' me, Jeem 'Orton. Sometimes I t'ink it is fear dat is de _grande passion_--when one has tasted everyt'ing else in life. Fear. To succeed in an adventure like this--_Et nous voila_! Quite safe and comfortable--an' each of us 'as made a friend. Is not dees wort' all de trouble?"

"Piquette!" he said, "you're a wonder! I'll never forget----"

"Ah, yes, you will, _mon petit_," she broke in with a shrug, "you are different from 'Arry. You are always _le grand serieux_. It was what I noticed at Javet's. You will love much, but you will never lie jus' to make a woman 'appy. And me--you will forget, Jeem 'Orton."

"Never," he said stoutly, "never, Piquette. You're the bravest, squarest woman in the world."

She laughed again. "_Allons_! For dat--I shall kees you, _mon ami_."

And she did, with a friendly frankness, upon the mouth.

It was a very pleasant sanctuary, this, into which fortune had thrown him, but deep in his heart Jim Horton knew that Piquette had read him truly. He was no panderer to women's caprices, and he could not forget the tragedy of the woman he loved, which might almost be laid at his door.

"You do not mind my keesing you, _mon petit_?" she asked.

"No. I like it," said Horton with a laugh.

But Piquette knew. Life in the streets of Paris had given her a sense of the fourth dimension. And curiously enough her prescience only quieted her, made her a little graver, matching her mind--her mood to his. He provided a new sensation, this outcast hero who owed her his life and yet was to pay her only in gratitude.

* * * * *

Jim Horton was penniless, for with an irony not lost on him, the money he had gotten from the bank had gone to pay Tricot and _Le Singe_ their price for his knock on the head. The clothing he found himself in had been none too good when Harry had worn it, and the incarceration in the filthy cellar had done nothing to improve it. Outcast he might be, but he meant while he had money in bank at least to look presentable. So Piquette got him a blank check from the bank which he made out and Piquette cashed, and the next day when he was able to go out, he bought himself a suit. He came back in the afternoon and with much pride exhibited his purchase.

She gave the clothing her approval and then shrugged.

"An' now, _mon_ Jeem, you will be going away, _n'est ce pas_?"

"Is it not better, Piquette? I have not the honor of Monsieur de Vautrin's acquaintance."

"Oh, _ca_!" she said with a quick gesture. "_Il est bete_. He would never know."

Jim Horton put his hands on her shoulders and made her look in his eyes.

"That's not the way, Piquette. You are too fine not to see. I can't be an object of your charity any longer--because it's _his_ charity. I owe you my life. I want to pay--but not like this. I want you to see my gratitude in my eyes, the depth of my friendship, I want you to know that what you've done for me has given a new meaning to courage and unselfishness."

She turned her head away as he paused, and then gently took his hands from her shoulders.

"I can pay, Piquette," he insisted quietly. "You do not love the Duc de Vautrin. Come away from here with me. I have a little money. I can get more from America. We will find you a place in the _Quartier_ where you will be happy until you have the home you deserve----"

"And you----," she faltered.

"What I do doesn't matter. An outcast----"

She started.

"You will leave Paris?"

"I do not know."

She released her fingers quickly and went to the window, looking over the rooftops in a long significant moment of silence.

"And de oder woman----"

She spoke the words distinctly, and yet he thought he must have misunderstood.

"Piquette, I----"

"What 'appens between you an' your brother's wife?" she asked quietly.

He had no reply and while he hesitated she turned slowly and faced him.

"I know, _mon petit_," she said with a smile. "I 'ave known it from de firs'. You love 'er. _C'est dommage_. It is a pity. She is ver' beautiful, dey say."

"I am a fool, Piquette."

"You are not de firs' in de worl'----"

He sank on the edge of the bed, wondering at his own confession.

"I was sorry for her--for her innocence, married to a man like that. She was kind to me. I played the part and kept silence. They were going to use her--palm her off as de Vautrin's child----"

He paused and looked up at Piquette, aware that the topic that he had not dared to broach now suddenly loomed between them.

Piquette faced him gravely.

"Yes, _mon ami_," she said, and the rising inflection was very gentle.

"I do not know what you wish to do, Piquette, and it is not for me to say. But before I was hurt, I had planned to find out all the facts of this conspiracy and tell both Harry's wife and the Duc de Vautrin. You have given me the facts. Do you want me to use them?"

Piquette was silent a moment, regarding him with a smile.

"Well, _mon ami_, 'as anyt'ing 'appen' to make you change your mind?"

He looked up at her in wonder.

"Piquette, I thought----" he began. But she broke in lightly.

"You s'all do what you wish, but it is a difficult game you play an' _dangereux_. You do not know Monsieur Quinlevin. If Tricot is de wolf an' Emile Pochard de fox, it is Barry Quinlevin who is de tiger. 'Arry 'Orton knows. 'E is afraid--what you call--eat out of his 'and."

"I've got to beat him, Piquette."

"Eh, bien! But remember, 'e is not a man to be easily vanquished. 'E is ver' quiet, ver' cool, _le vrai gentilhomme_, but 'e 'as sharp claws, Jeem 'Orton."

"A thief----"

"And de Vautrin?" she broke in. "Monsieur le Duc is no better dan he. He did not care 'ow 'e got de money."

Horton paced the room slowly, in deep abstraction, but in a moment stopped before her and caught her hands in his.

"Piquette," he said gravely, "you were in this thing--I don't know why or how, because a woman with a soul as big as yours oughtn't to be stooping to this kind of rottenness."

For a long while she made no reply, but she turned her head away and looked out of the window.

"I can't change de way I was born, Jeem 'Orton," she said quietly.

He was silent, aware of the false situation, and thinking deeply.

"I've got to tell her the truth, Piquette," he said at last.

Another moment of silence and then Piquette turned toward him, both arms outstretched.

"You are right, _mon petit_ Jeem. You s'all go to 'er and tell 'er----"

"Piquette----!"

"_Je ne me fiche pas_. Go. It's nothing to me."

Jim Horton had risen and put his arms around her, turning her face up to his and kissing her gently. She made no resistance, but she did not return his caress.

"You are too good for him, Piquette."

She stirred uneasily in his arms and then released herself.

"Go, Jeem----", she said. "Go."

"Will you meet me to-night at Javet's?"

"Yes. _Au revoir, mon brave_."

She watched him go down the stair and then turned in at the door of her own apartment.

* * * * *

Jim Horton was no squire of dames, but he couldn't be unaware of the attractions of this lovely pagan. Like her he was an outcast and their ways perhaps lay along the same paths to oblivion, but before he started down that road he had a duty still to perform, a wrong to set right, and he meant to do it without delay. If Harry had succeeded in ingratiating himself with Moira he knew that she must despise him for his betrayal of her credulity. But he meant to seek her out just the same and tell her the truth about Barry Quinlevin as he knew it. He wanted to see her again--just this once, in order to try and justify himself in her eyes for his imposture, and then he would go--he didn't much care where.

But he realized as he crossed the river that it was not going to be an easy matter to reach her unobserved. He knew that Harry must be passing some uneasy moments and it was better that Harry didn't see him just yet. But there was the watchful Madame Toupin to pass and it was still half an hour until dusk when he hoped to slip through the gate and up the stairs. Meanwhile he found himself a lodging in an obscure street and then with his hat-brim pulled down walked into the Rue de Tavennes and boldly approached the familiar gate.

"Madame Horton?" he asked.

"_Oui, Monsieur_. She is in. Do you know the way?"

Nothing could have been more simple. Madame Toupin had pulled the latch without even looking up at him.

*CHAPTER XI*

*CONFESSIONS*

It all seemed like a horrible dream to Moira--the revelation of Harry's vileness--the prison by the river, the police, the escape of Jim Horton with the unknown woman, the homeward ride with the police officer, and the night in the studio-apartment with locked doors, waiting--listening for Harry's return, until at last through sheer exhaustion of mind and body she had fallen asleep. And then, the visit the next day of the police officer, the questions that she had to answer. But he got nothing from her beyond the mere skeleton of the tale which she had given the night before. She wouldn't tell how she got to the Rue Charron, some instinct still sealing her lips as to her husband's share in the adventure, and inventing a tale that seemed to satisfy the requirements of the interview. No crime had been actually committed though all the circumstances were suspicious. The officer told her that a search would be made for the man named Tricot and that Madame Horton should hold herself in readiness to appear against him, if necessary, at some future time.

The return of Harry Horton, her husband, the next afternoon, contrite and humility itself, was unpleasant, but they reached an understanding, pending the return of Barry Quinlevin from Ireland. She kept the secret of her visit to the house in the Rue Charron and her knowledge of the escape of the prisoner. She saw that her husband was worried and furtive and she had no difficulty in exacting from him a promise not to molest her. In return she promised silence, and he departed with every protestation of friendship and good will, somewhat reassured as to her intentions.

As to Jim Horton, the twin brother who had worked such havoc in her life, Moira was very much troubled and disturbed. The hurt to her pride was grievous but the joy she had in the very thought of him seemed to assuage all wounds. She knew now that if he had died in the house in the Rue Charron that night she would have worshiped him all her life as a martyr to their unfortunate affection. And the memories of Jim Horton's tenderness on the day of their parting, the gentleness of his abnegation, his struggle against the temptation of her nearness--all these thoughts of him obliterating the horrors that had followed, returned and engulfed her with pity. Their love had seemed so perfect a thing! But now--a mockery!

She felt very friendless in the big studio, very much alone. And yet--could she confess to her father her love for this brother who had come in and taken Harry's place? The hurt to her pride burned again angrily. Her father, like herself, had been deceived by the brother at the hospital and what sympathy could she expect from him? He would be furious at the deception that had been practiced upon them both, and would perhaps take Harry's part against her.

Moira clenched her hands and stared long into the gray cinders of the fireplace. If it was to be war, she would fight. She had married Harry in a moment of pity because her father had wished it, but the understanding had been definite. And now she would rather run away--even from her father--than to fulfill the terrible vows she had taken. Jim Horton--she wanted to hear his side of the story. Reviving faith in him made her sure that if he were alive he would come to her and tell her everything....

A cautious step on the stair outside--a knock. She went over quickly, turned the key in the lock, opened the door, then stood staring, unable to speak.

"It's I, Moira," said Jim Horton gently.

"You--," she faltered.

"I said that I would come back, but I--I was detained," he said coolly.

If he had expected her to be surprised at his appearance out of uniform she gave no sign of it. She opened wide the door and stood aside.

"I--I know," she murmured.

"I won't stay long, but there were some things I wanted you to know--some facts in extenuation of my conduct, that may make you think less bitterly of me----"

"You look ill," she said, staring at him. "It is all too horrible to think about----"

"Horrible, if you like," he said slowly, misinterpreting her meaning, "but done in a weak moment with a good motive----"

"Oh, not that. I mean, what they did to you--the danger you passed through----"

"You know of that?"

"Yes. I followed Harry, and got the police----"

"It was you? Good God!"

"It was the least that I could do--after I found out--from him--what had happened."

He stared at her in incomprehension.

"You mean that he confessed to you?"

She nodded and then laughed nervously.

"I don't know why I should be keeping you standing on the door-sill--like a model. If you've much to say you'd better say it sitting, Jim Horton."

He started and stared at her, but she had closed the door behind him and led the way with an assumption of carelessness to the chairs by the dead fire, as though aware of its symbolism.

"You know--the truth?"

She shrugged. "What Harry--what my husband--has told me, no more--no less."

He marveled at her ease, at the cruelty of her chosen phrases. And yet he could not cavil at them. It was clear that she meant that there were to be no further misunderstandings, that she was shifting the burden to his shoulders where it belonged. The sense of his culpability weighed upon him and he did not look at her, and so he missed the quick, anxious sensitive glances that searched his face for the truth in his heart. But he bent his head forward and stared into the ashes that had glowed so warmly a few nights ago.

"I have come to speak the truth," he began, his voice deep, resonant and trembling with his emotion. "A visit of confession and renunciation----"

"It's rather late, isn't it?" she said in a hard little voice that he scarcely recognized as her own. He knew that he deserved this of her and more, but it cut him none the less.

"I will tell you the truth," he went on firmly. "And then you shall judge for yourself. I owe it to you to tell the facts, but I owe it to myself, too."

She nodded and sat. And so, quietly, neglecting no detail, he told her of Harry, from the moment of their meeting on the battlefield until they had met outside in the Rue de Tavennes. He heard Moira gasp at the mention of Harry's cowardice, but he went on to the end, without pause.

"Something of what followed, you know," he went on quietly. "I tried to tell them the truth in the hospital. I said I wasn't Harry Horton. They didn't believe me. They thought I was still out of my head. And so I lay there for a while, silent. I think I must have been pretty weak."

He paused a moment to gather his thoughts.

"There were some letters to Harry. I had no right to read them. But I