watched it emerge, traverse the clear moonlit valley with
slackening speed, and pause at the station for its freight of
passengers. There was a vague sound of confusion as the people
took their places, and then with a parting shriek it set off
again; and as the sound died away in the distance, a great
stillness succeeded the noise and bustle of a few moments
before.

Horace was afraid he had seen the last of Madelon, for
returning to the hotel he found no one in the salon, with the
exception of Mademoiselle Cécile, who was already putting out
the lights. The hall, too, was deserted; the servants had
vanished, and the _habitués_ of the hotel had apparently gone to
bed, for he met no one as he passed along, and turned down the
passage leading to the salle-à-manger. This was a large long
room, occupying the whole ground floor of one wing of the
hotel, with windows looking out on one side into the
courtyard, on the other into the garden, two long tables,
smaller ones in the space between, and above them a row of
chandeliers smothered in pink and yellow paper roses. The room
looked bare and deserted enough now; a sleepy waiter lounged
at the further end, the trees in the garden rustled and waved
to and fro in the rising night breeze, the moonlight streamed
through the uncurtained windows on to the boarded floor and
white table-cloths, chasing the darkness into remote corners,
and contending with the light of the single lamp which stood
on one of the smaller tables, where two men were sitting,
drinking, smoking, and playing at cards.

One of them was a man between thirty and forty, in a tight-