"Who is this Madame Nozières?" asked Ellen.
"I don't know," her companion repeated. "I know nothing. She has an apartment. She comes there sometimes. She is rich. She is generous. She does not live there always. She only comes now and then . . . when Monsieur has permission from the front."
"Monsieur Nozières?"
In the darkness, the old man was silent for a time. He was breathless from the effort of their haste. "No," he replied. "Monsieur . . . your brother."
This then was the rendezvous for which Fergus had left the house in the Rue Raynouard. There was some one then—some woman—who had the power of taking him from her on the very night he had returned after so many years. It must have been strong, this force, stronger than the power which Callendar himself exerted. She understood his persistence. Against such a power, she was, of course, helpless.
"It is here," said her guide abruptly. "Follow me."
He led the way through a corridor into an open court filled with summer furniture, stacked now in the corners against the empty stone urns. In the dim light that filtered through the shutters on the far side, she was able to discern the outlines of chairs and tables, piled helter-skelter, as if they too had felt the force of a bomb that hurled them into a corner.
The old man knocked on a door that led into the apartment from which the light showed itself. From inside the murmur of voices came to them, distantly. And at last the door opened.
Against the dim light, Ellen was able to discern the figure of a small woman, dressed in a trim dark suit. She wore no hat and her blonde hair, cut short, stood about her head in a halo of ringlets which caught and reflected the glow behind her. She had been weeping. Even in the emotion of the moment, Ellen saw with a feminine instinct that she had chic, and when she spoke she
