"Yes, that is true," said Amedee thoughtfully. "No one can deny it; it
is a French name." He rested the tray upon a stump near by and scratched
his head. "I do not understand how that can be," he continued slowly.
"Jean Ferret, who is chief gardener at the chateau, is an acquaintance
of mine. We sometimes have a cup of cider at Pere Baudry's, a kilometre
down the road from here; and Jean Ferret has told me that she is an
American. And yet, as you say, monsieur, the name is French. Perhaps she
is French after all."

"I believe," said I, "that if I struggled a few days over this puzzle, I
might come to the conclusion that Madame d'Armand is an American lady
who has married a Frenchman."

The old man uttered an exclamation of triumph.

"Ha! without doubt! Truly she must be an American lady who has married a
Frenchman. Monsieur has already solved the puzzle. Truly, truly!" And he
trulied himself across the darkness, to emerge in the light of the open
door of the kitchen with the word still rumbling in his throat.

Now for a time there came the clinking of dishes, sounds as of pans and
kettles being scoured, the rolling gutturals of old Gaston, the cook,
and the treble pipings of young "Glouglou," his grandchild and scullion.
After a while the oblong of light from the kitchen door disappeared; the
voices departed; the stillness of the dark descended, and with it that
unreasonable sense of pathos which night in the country brings to the
heart of a wanderer. Then, out of the lonely silence, there issued a
strange, incongruous sound as an execrable voice essayed to produce the
semblance of an air odiously familiar about the streets of Paris some