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516 sympathy with the bereaved relatives, that Puivert insisted on making him known to Mme. Maréchal and her daughter.

The elder lady was gentle, faded, and broken with grief. The young girl was beautiful, poignantly sad, yet at the same time full of energy and fire.

The mother had resigned herself to the mystery which shrouded her son's fate. The daughter rebelled against it.

"The Leroys are suspected by the police," Mme. Maréchal explained as she talked the affair over with Raymond and her nephew on the terrace after dinner. "But after all, it is a mere suspicion. And, indeed, how is it possible to believe that that man and his wife could have been guilty of so cold-blooded a crime?"

"I shall never have a moment's happiness again," said the girl, "until we have proved that Victor has neither deserted us nor committed suicide. These suggestions have been made. They are horrible. Victor adored us. He would never voluntarily have given those he loved one moment's anxiety. Why should he abandon us? And he was happy, honourable, prosperous. Why should he take his own life?"

"This gentleman," remarked Puivert, indicating Raymond, "has been telling me that he knows the inn, and that he fancies he knows the Leroys. It seems that he passed a night there himself a few years ago."

"Ah, monsieur!" cried Léonie, clasping her hands, "if you could help us!"

"My testimony, such as it is, only tells in the inn's favour, since I slept there, had money in my pocket, yet came away next morning unscathed."

He related the adventure over again as he had already told it to Puivert, but neither then nor now did he touch upon the dream.

"I think I should like to see these Leroys," he said, aside, to Puivert, before parting that night. "If I were to come into Gex with you to-morrow, would it be possible to manage it for me?"

Not only possible, but easy." And it was arranged that he should accompany the advocate into the examining judge's room, and be present at the interrogation of the Leroys.

Mlle. Léonie spoke to Raymond as the two men set off next morning. She and her mother, not being wanted in Gex, were going to spend a quiet day at Etréport.

"If you can help us in any way to solve this dreadful mystery," she told him with swimming eyes, "you may reckon on our eternal gratitude."

"You may believe that I would do everything a man can," Raymond assured her, "merely to win from you one kindly thought."

"YOU MAY BELIEVE THAT I WOULD DO EVERYTHING A MAN CAN," RAYMOND ASSURED HER."

He spoke so earnestly that she was surprised into a blush.

He referred enthusiastically to Mlle. Léonie when he and Puivert were in the train together on the way to Gex.