not be quite real . . . this gnome with the enormous white mustaches. And unaccountably there flashed through her mind a fragment of the letter Lily had written her long ago—And then he rode away into the darkness. I am certain that he is dead.
"He is hurt," said Ellen. "Something has happened to him!"
The old man answered simply. "Yes. There was an accident. He is wounded."
Without questioning him further, she wrapped herself in a fur coat and holding to the collar of Hansi she went out, after locking the door on the silent house, to follow the old man.
As they walked there were times when the darkness was so profound that she could not see him at all and was forced to call out for guidance. It was Hansi who aided her. He kept close to the heels of the old man.
She had a sense of passing through the Place Passy into the Rue Franklin.
"Who are you, mon vieux?" she asked.
The old man coughed. He went rapidly for one so old, but she fancied it was terror that gave speed to his fat legs, terror that the Gothas might return.
"I am the concierge of the building where Madame Nozières has an apartment. It was she who sent me. It is close at hand . . . in the Avenue Kléber."
Vaguely in the darkness, black against the deep blue of the sky, the ugly towers of the Trocadéro appeared a little on the right. "What is it that happened? Is he wounded . . . gravely, seriously, . . . my brother?"
The old man grunted. "I don't know. I know nothing. There was a bomb fell in the Avenue Kléber." He raised his head and sniffed like a shaggy old dog. "Smell," he commanded. "You can smell the bomb."
It was true. The faint odor of picric acid filled the damp night air. As they walked the odor grew more and more intense. In the darkness Ellen's guide pointed to the left.
"The bomb fell over there," he observed, "full in the street."
