Page:Dale - A Marriage Below Zero.djvu/320

314 suspiciously, and said he would wait, but he would like to be paid for the trip we had already made. Angry, even at this delay, I paid him, and passed at once into the hotel.

The proprietor was a big, burly, flaxen-haired fellow, phlegmatic, yet still a Frenchman. He came to the door to meet me. I hesitated for a moment, and then asked:

"Is M. Delacroix in?"

He looked at me keenly, and did not answer at once. "Does Madame not know?" he asked, haltingly.

"Know what?" I demanded, with a sinking heart.

"M. Delacroix was arrested this morning," said the proprietor, "at my hotel, too—alas! that I should tell it. He is charged with being involved in these—in these scandals, and—"

He went on in an affably recitative manner, hut I heard no more. What a fool I had been to imagine that the French authorities would ignore the confession that I had read in the Telegraph. They had acted upon it at once. It had probably