like this young officer, whose face bespoke chivalry and gentle birth.
Better that Alencon Barre should know all, than that he should know in
part and some day unwittingly make trouble. So he raised frank eyes to
those of the other, and told the story of the man whose portrait had so
affected Gabrielle Rouget.

"Monsieur," said he, "I will tell you of this man first, and then it will
be easier to answer your questions."

He took the portrait from his pocket, passed it over, and continued.
"I received this portrait in a letter from England the day that I left
Sydney, as I was getting aboard the boat. I placed it among those papers
which you read. It fell out on the floor of the cafe, and you saw the
rest. The man whose face is before you there, and who sent that to me,
was my best friend in the days when I was at school and college.
Afterwards, when a law-student, and, still later, when I began to
practise my profession, we lived together in a rare old house at Fulham,
with high garden walls and--but I forget, you do not know London perhaps.
Yes? Well, the house is neither here nor there; but I like to think of
those days and of that home. Luke Freeman--that was my friend's name--
was an artist and a clever one. He had made a reputation by his
paintings of Egyptian and Algerian life. He was brilliant and original,
an indefatigable worker. Suddenly, one winter, he became less
industrious, fitful in his work, gloomy one day and elated the next,
generally uncomfortable. What was the matter? Strange to say, although
we were such friends, we chose different sets of society, and therefore
seldom appeared at the same houses or knew the same people. He liked
most things continental; he found his social pleasures in that polite
Bohemia which indulges in midnight suppers and permits ladies to smoke
cigarettes after dinner, which dines at rich men's tables and is hob-a-