increasing uproar. Had not Gabrielle Rouget said that he was an English
spy? As the bottle was poised in the air with a fiendish cry of "A
baptism! a baptism!" and Shorland was debating on his chances of avoiding
it, and on the wisdom of now drawing his weapon and cutting his way
through the mob, there came from the door a call of "Hold! hold!" and a
young officer dashed in, his arm raised against the brutal missile in the
hands of the ticket-of-leave man, whose Chauvinism was a matter of
absinthe, natural evil, and Gabrielle Rouget. "Wretches! scum of
France!" he cried: "what is this here? And you, Gabrielle, do you
sleep? Do you permit murder?"

The woman met the fire in his eyes without flinching, and some one
answered for her. "He is an English spy."

"Take care, Gabrielle," the young officer went on, "take care--you go too
far!" Waving back the sullen crowd, now joined by the woman who had not
yet spoken, he said: "Who are you, monsieur? What is the trouble?"

Shorland drew from his pocket his letters and credentials. Gabrielle now
stood at the young officer's elbow. As the papers were handed over, a
photograph dropped from among them and fell to the floor face upward.
Shorland stooped to pick it up, but, as he did so, he heard a low
exclamation from Gabrielle. He looked up. She pointed to the portrait,
and said gaspingly: "My God--look! look!" She leaned forward and touched
the portrait in his hand. "Look! look!" she said again. And then she
paused, and a moment after laughed. But there was no mirth in her
laughter--it was hollow and nervous. Meanwhile the young officer had
glanced at the papers, and now handed them back, with the words: "All is
right, monsieur--eh, Gabrielle, well, what is the matter?" But she drew
back, keeping her eyes fixed on the Englishman, and did not answer.