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 written it above that this discovery altered my opinion of the Château de l'Épée and of its mistress just about as suddenly as a man's opinion could be altered. It is one thing to believe that you're asked to a house to play cards; it is another to wake up to the fact that you are the guest of queer folks who can't afford to be seen in the daylight, and whose object in lying low doesn't altogether explain itself. That the Comte de Faugère was lying low, I never had a doubt from the start of it. And yet this continued to be the puzzle—that he was at the château, while they gave it out that he was in Paris.

It was daylight that morning before I went to sleep. There were moments when I said that I would have it out with Sir Nicolas Steele before another day was passed; other moments when I remembered what a poor hand he was at holding his tongue, and resolved that I would get deeper down into it before I shared it with him. "Maybe," said I, "it doesn't concern us any more than the pump in the court yonder; maybe it concerns us very much indeed.