Eve de Montalais to be sensible and remove her jewels to a place of
safe-keeping before it was too late.

Millau, however, disappointed. At the end of a twenty-mile walk on a
day of suffocating heat, Duchemin plodded wearily into the Hôtel du
Commerce, engaged a room for the night, and was given a telegram from
London which rewarded decoding to some such effect as this:

"MONK AMERICAN INDEPENDENT MEANS GOOD REPUTE NO INFORMATION AS TO
OTHERS HAVE ASKED SURÉTÉ CONCERNING LORGNES WOULD GIVE SOMETHING TO
KNOW WHAT MISCHIEF YOU ARE MEDDLING WITH THIS TRIP AND WHY THE DEUCE
YOU MUST."

Few things are better calculated to curdle the milk of human kindness
than to find that one's fellow-man has meanly contrived to keep his
reputation fair when one is satisfied it should be otherwise. Duchemin
used bitter language in strict confidence with himself, disliked his
dinner and, after conscientiously loathing the sights of Millau for an
hour or two, sought his bed in the devil's own humour.

Though he waited till eleven of the following forenoon, there was no
supplementary telegram: London evidently meant him to understand that
the Surété in Paris had communicated nothing to the discredit of
Monsieur le Comte de Lorgnes and his consort.

Enquiry of the administration of the Hôtel de Commerce elicited the
information that the Monk party had stopped there on the night of the
storm, doubled back in the morning to visit Montpellier-le-Vieux,
returning for midday déjeuner, and had then proceeded for Paris, just
like any other well-behaved company of tourists.