Heavy-eyed, with a smarting brow and a raging headache, Ascott awoke late the following morning. It was about ten o’clock when the young man in the big four-poster, whose twisted Renaissance pillars almost touched the ceiling, stretched his cramped limbs and slowly came back to a consciousness of his surroundings. His throat was parched with an insatiable thirst; mechanically and without opening his eyes, for he knew to a nicety the position of the various articles that stood near his bed, he extended a faltering arm towards a little table at the bedside, reaching for the water bottle his carefully trained servant used to put there every night full of water. His hand felt over the marble top of the table, but failed to find what he sought. He was so weary, his head was throbbing so painfully he could not at first summon up courage enough to rise. Again lazily stretching, he turned over between the sheets and tried to get to sleep again, setting his face to the wall to guard his smarting eyes against the light of day that penetrated the heavy curtains drawn across the window.

Not a sound was audible; the mansion the wealthy Englishman had purchased some weeks ago was as silent as the grave, the domestics far away in the basement where the offices and kitchen were situated going about their business softly so as not to disturb their master’s slumbers. Nor did the latter feel the smallest desire to get up, though out of doors the weather was magnificent, the sky of Paris as blue as on an Italian summer’s day and the temperature, genial even at this morning hour, promising an afternoon of almost tropical heat.

“That beast of a John,” he was thinking, “by forgetting to put my water ready last night will have made me ill for the rest of the day!”

Stumbling across the room, his eyes still only half open, Ascott made for the dressing room adjoining his bedroom, in which he felt sure—at least he hoped so—of finding a supply of clear, fresh water that should revive his energies depressed by the consumption of unlimited alcoholic liquors and liqueurs. He opened the door of his bathroom, but on the point of entering, he stopped dead on the threshold, dumbfounded by what he saw, albeit with a very vague and confused comprehension of the apparition that met his gaze! The room, generally so neat and tidy and meticulously ordered, every crystal phial and pomatum pot and toilet article in its appointed place on the dressing table, was this morning in the wildest disorder. There were bottles without stoppers giving out heady perfumes, brushes scattered about the floor, towels tossed at random over the backs of chairs.

But what above all else surprised the young man and filled him with the most intense amazement was to see on the Louis Seize settee, where he often threw himself after his bath to be massaged by his servant man to restore his numbed limbs to their proper suppleness, a woman lying there, half undressed and her hair undone, curled up on the couch buried in heavy, but restless slumbers. Her clothes, her skirt, her bodice lay about the floor, her shoes lay one in a corner cheek by jowl with a copper kettle, the other precariously perched on the shelf of a what-not!

Ascott gazed long at the sleeping figure in utter bewilderment; he was still very tired and his mind was slow to understand, while an atrocious neuralgic headache tortured him. What had happened then, following the moment when he had found himself alone with Nini Guinon in the private room at the restaurant in the Place de la Bastille? He could remember nothing, he had forgotten everything. All the same his conscience told him that the history of subsequent events should not be very difficult to reconstruct. At the same time he was suffering atrociously, his head, his forehead, the nape of his neck were all seats of horrid pain. It felt as though every hair that bristled on his skull was a needle point painfully pricking the scalp. Putting off till later all thought of seriously considering his plight, Ascott, on tip-toe, moving carefully to avoid making the slightest noise, but as a first preliminary having drained at a draught half the contents of a water-jug, crept across the room, resolved to regain his bed and sleep off the last vestiges of his fatigue.

But hardly had he taken a couple of steps when he started and swore. A soft knock had sounded on the door. The tired man deemed no reply needful; no one surely would venture to come in without his permission, and that he was not disposed to give. But evidently it was ordained that the unfortunate young man should not be left in peace that morning to sleep off the effects of his last night’s indulgence. In defiance of the established customs of the house, hitherto invariably respected, the door, without leave given, was half opened. A head appeared, a face of consternation, the head and face of his servant John. Ascott, who at the moment was making for the bed, turned sharply round and sitting down on the coverlet, addressed the domestic in angry tones:

“What ever has come to you, John what do you want? I haven’t rung, that I know of.”

For all that the man pushed into the room and advanced some steps nearer his master.

“Forgive me, sir,” he murmured, “I should never have dared to come into your bedroom, sir, without being summoned, but there’s someone wishing to ...”

“You are mad, John; you know perfectly well I never receive visitors at this hour of the day.”

“Excuse me, sir, but it seems it is important.”

“Nothing is important enough to wake me up for,” declared Ascott.

But the servant went on with extraordinary and unprecedented persistency.

“It is the old fellow who sometimes comes to see you, sir, the business agent, your lawyer, sir, old M. Moche. I explained you could not see him, sir, but he insisted all the same, he almost forced me to come up here ... please excuse me, sir, but ...”

His master was furious. Calling up, not without difficulty, all the will power he possessed, all the energy he was capable of that morning, he vociferated passionately:

“I will not see him and if the old chap insists, chuck him out of the house!”

Ascott had hardly uttered the words before a grave and dignified voice was heard in the anteroom adjoining the bed-chamber, and at the same moment there issued from the shadows, pushing his way into the room, someone whose identity could admit of no mistake even to the Englishman’s sleepy eyes. It was in fact M. Moche coming in, in defiance of all prohibition. Dressed, as always, in his long, black frock-coat, holding in his hand his tall hat with the dulled, dented surface, M. Moche showed dirtier and still more repulsive-looking in the broad light of day than by candlelight, but also more solemn and more majestic.

The old man bowed slightly to Ascott, who sat silent and impassive on his bed.

“I have to speak to you, sir, to speak to you, alone,” he announced, casting a thunderous glance at the old servant, but the latter never budged, waiting for his master’s orders.

Ascott resigned himself to the inevitable: “Go, John,” he ordered, “we wish to be alone.”

Hardly had the door closed behind the servant before Moche, throwing his calm and majestic manner to the winds, rushed up to the young Englishman and in a beseeching voice half choked with emotion, but nevertheless showing just a shade of menace, demanded:

Ascott shook in his shoes; just what he was fearing had occurred, and that at a time, at an hour in the morning, when he would have given all he possessed to be left in peace. He made a slight, nonchalant, evasive gesture, feigning he had never an inkling of the meaning of Père Moche’s question.

“Your niece,” he protested, “I know nothing of what has become of her; am I her keeper?”

But Moche broke in again. With rising passion the old business man shouted:

“You lie, sir; you have odiously abused my trust in you, abused the friendship I felt for you. Do not try to deny your guilt; I know all. To begin with, taking advantage of a moment’s negligence on my part, you locked yourself in alone with Nini in the private room where we all three dined, and like a very satyr, a perfect monster of vice, you were dastard enough to seduce my niece, poor child!”

Playing his odious comedy to perfection, the old fellow sank into a chair, and dropping his head between his hands, pretended to sob. In a piteous voice, he whined:

“Poor child! poor darling Nini, so gentle, so pure, so virtuous, what a hideous awakening must this have been for her. Oh! I can picture her despair and horror. It is frightful, maddening!”

Moche sprang up and again approached Ascott, who, vexed beyond measure, was gazing on the scene with a dazed expression in his haggard eyes.

“What has become of her? We have spent a dreadful night, sir, I tortured with fear and anxiety, her poor mother in terrible suspense, for Nini has never returned home; where is she? you alone can say, and you must and shall.”

Meanwhile, as he spoke, Moche had gone over to the window and half-drawn back the curtains, admitting daylight into the darkened room. Seeing that the bed was empty, that the bedroom showed no signs of disorder and held no one else save the young Englishman, the old brigand appeared surprised, not to say disconcerted. For some moments he stood hesitating, at fault, thinking to himself:

Moche stood biting his lips in perplexity, hesitating what course to follow, and to gain time began shouting at Ascott again:

“What has become of Nini? what have you done with her? answer me, sir, answer me!”

But the young man was trembling with apprehension. He had been listening and in spite of the rumpus old Moche was kicking up, he caught the sound of faint, furtive noises coming from the adjoining room. For a little while the Englishman had been congratulating himself on his success in feigning ignorance and seeming to attach no meaning to the questions addressed to him by the unspeakable uncle of the pretty child he had made his mistress the evening before. He hoped that, wearying of the contest, old Moche would go away, and firm in his original intention, he swore to himself he would then double lock his door and at any cost go on sleeping for at least another two hours!

But now the noise in the dressing room was upsetting his plans, for he felt convinced that Nini was certainly awake. What would the girl decide to do? Infuriated by the attitude adopted by the man who, taking her by surprise and defenceless, had become her lover, would she spring forth and demand vengeance, or else, dumb with despair, covered with shame at her dishonour, would she be afraid to show herself in the disorder of her morning toilet before the eyes of the old uncle she loved and seemed to esteem so highly?

Ascott had no time left him to weigh probabilities at length, for the first of these two hypotheses was promptly realized. Besides which, M. Moche had also, like Ascott, heard noises in the adjoining room, and instinctively the old fellow was making for the door of the dressing room when Nini appeared.

The girl was pale as death, her eyes glittered with a strange brilliance, her lips quivered in a nervous spasm; at sight of her uncle and as if surprised to find him there, she made a show of hesitation, first advancing, then drawing back. Finally, she darted to the old man’s side, threw herself into his arms and hiding her face on his shoulder, broke into loud sobs, crying:

The scene the two base accomplices were playing with such noteworthy spirit to cajole the rich Englishman was assuredly touching, and it was interpreted with a consummate art worthy of professional actors. But the play was only beginning! Nini now tore herself from the arms of her supposed relative and turning to Ascott, gazed long at her lover with a look at once tender and aggrieved. Then, very softly, she murmured:

“Oh, sir! sir! what have you done?”

Next old Moche took the cue: “You have dishonoured her, sir; you have committed an irreparable crime; it is shameful, abominable!”

While her uncle was speaking, Nini, overwhelmed by the intensity of her emotion, fell to the floor and lay sobbing in the cleverly calculated pose of a beautiful statue of Grief!

Ascott was dreadfully upset by the unpleasant incident. The young man cursed the mad fit that had come over him the night before, while he experienced a very genuine regret at the thought that he had ruined this pretty child, who through his fault had lost her good name for ever.

Meantime a fresh witness of the lamentable scene suddenly arrived. John burst into the room like a whirlwind. Running to his master:

“Sir, sir,” he cried, “the world is coming to an end!”

The Englishman, whose raging headache, so far from getting better, was growing more agonizing every minute, nevertheless preserved an imperturbable calm.

“What ever is to do, John, what d’you want?”

“Sir,” continued the domestic, who with blanched face and eyes unnaturally dilated, was staring at his master and Père Moche, and above all at the young woman lying on the floor, “Sir, it is the law!”

“The law!” cried Ascott; “you are mad, John!”

“No, sir, no, I am not mad; it is a Judge, a Court of Law, I don’t know what all!”

“I am the Commissary of Police, sir,” he announced. “Is it to Monsieur Ascott I have the honour to speak?”

“To the same,” replied the young man, turning pale, while drops of cold sweat gathered on his brow.

“You sent for me, sir,” pursued the Commissary.

“I!” exclaimed Ascott, “never such a thing! it wasn’t I!”

M. Moche broke into the dialogue: “It was I, Monsieur le Commissaire, who took the liberty of asking you to come, and also, you will remember, the two gentlemen who are with you.”

“I’m utterly at sea,” muttered Ascott, in a wearied voice; “I don’t understand ...”

“You will soon understand!” declared Moche, truculently.

After that Ascott began to scrutinize in sick bewilderment not only the Police Commissary, but also the two men who stood behind him, a pair of white-faced loafers of dubious aspect and repulsive countenance; they stood twisting about in evident embarrassment, jumping from one foot to the other and mechanically turning about their greasy caps between their fingers.

Presently the Commissary addressed the two apaches, pointing to M. Ascott.

“Do you recognize that gentleman?” he asked.

“Why, yes, it’s as you might say, the party what engaged us last evening, about midnight, at the restaurant of the Silver Goblet ...”

The Commissary questioned Ascott: “You were dining, were you not, at a restaurant in the Place de la Bastille, with the gentleman here present and mademoiselle?”—and the magistrate, to avoid any possibility of mistake, pointed in succession to M. Moche and Nini Guinon.

“Yes,” admitted Ascott, not understanding what his questioner would be at.

“Good,” continued the Commissary, and put another question:

But the Englishman could only stare in bewilderment at the two ruffians; he cudgelled his brains in vain, and despite the strain he imposed on his addled wits, he could not remember having made any proposal whatsoever to the individuals before him.

“But I don’t know those persons,” he articulated with difficulty.

The Commissary gave a sceptical smile.

“Speak!” he ordered, addressing the “Gasman,” “Repeat to the gentleman the deposition you came to my office to make.”

“Here’s for it then!” the apache spoke with some show of embarrassment at telling his story before everybody, “it was like this—the two of us, ‘Bull’s-eye’ and I, we were just on the saunter last evening, as you might say, near by the Bastille, when all of a minute we saw a toff a-coming down the stairs of the swell pub; it was the gentleman you say, the Englishman here present. He seemed a bit squiffy as he talked; he said to us like this: ‘There’s a brace of quid to be made, my lads, if you’ll lend a hand to help a lady down who’s ill seemingly upstairs, and take her back to her home; only, case she should kick up a bit of a rumpus, mustn’t let her talk.’ We chaps, we ain’t no millionaires, you know, sir, and two quid’s not to be refused. ‘Right oh!’ we told the Englishman, and there we were a-going up the stairs of the house. The Englishman, he took us into a private ken, where there was a wench, who set up a devil of a screeching when she saw us; but the Englishman claps a napkin over her mug, seemingly to make a gag; then says he to us: ‘Off you go, hook it, stir your stumps! There’s another two quid if you do it sharp!’ That made four quid, so you may bet your life we were on, sir. Then we get the baggage downstairs, clap her in a motor-car, and the four of us drive off here, all serene like. The wench never moved; by the Englishman’s orders she’d been tied up hand and foot; he paid fair and square and went straight in.

“‘Wasn’t she a little, dark girl, the wench you’re howling about?’ he asks him.

“‘Yes, yes ... Might you, maybe, know where she is?’

“‘Maybe we might, and maybe we might not.’

“‘Bull’s-eye,’ he was getting to feel funny-like, and I wasn’t just over happy, we’d been and done a nasty trick. But there was a way, p’raps, to make up for our foolishness, and we made up our minds to do the right thing. Old Moche, he stuck to us all night; back we trotted to the district we’d taken the wench to, hunted round to recognize the house and found it at last.

“And then Père Moche, he out with it:

“‘Must come along with me to the Commissary, my lads, and tell him the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; else you may be certain sure you’re in for a hatful of trouble!’ So there you are, sir, that’s what we did!”

The apache broke off, then suddenly, with a superb gesture, drawing four gold louis from his pocket, he spread them out in the hollow of his hand, and marching up to Ascott, he made a proposal to the rich Englishman that astounded the latter more than ever.

“Would it hurt you, sir, to take back your money? The tin was not honestly earned, and it burns our fingers!”

With a look of disgust the apache tossed on to the young man’s knees the four gold coins, which rolled under the bed.

Père Moche broke in: “Such, Monsieur le Commissaire, are the facts as they occurred—you know them yourself, sir; indeed, M. Ascott does not deny them. Besides which, the presence in his house of my unhappy niece, a mere child, sir, barely sixteen years of age, whom he has odiously wronged, is surely the best proof of guilt ...”

“Moderate your language, sir!” he protested, in haughty accents; “do not forget you are speaking to the representative of law and order. However, I obey your wish, deeming my duty to be completed in this house.” Then, turning to the two apaches:

“I will likewise ask the witnesses to withdraw, in an orderly way and in silence.”

Finally he addressed himself to M. Moche:

“If the young lady, your niece, sir, wishes to go, she will find a conveyance at the door.”

Moche overwhelmed the Commissary with his thanks, while Nini, who had a little before retired into the dressing room, was hastily completing her toilet to quit the house of the man who had become her lover in so strange a fashion. Some minutes passed in silence, during which the several actors in this amazing scene were busy with the most varied reflections. Père Moche remained impassive to all outward seeming, but in his heart he was overjoyed at the happy turn events were taking; once or twice he threw a meaning glance at his two confederates of the previous evening, who had carried out his instructions so well.

In telling his story, invented for the occasion, the “Gasman” had actually spoken in the very tones of one convinced of the truth of what he was relating. The fellow had made no mistakes, he had narrated the adventure exactly in the way agreed upon, and above all, Père Moche admired the apache’s final act, one that had not been arranged beforehand, the act of giving back to Ascott the accursed gold wherewith he had, as he thought, bought the complicity of the two wretches, an act calculated to remove all doubt from the Commissary’s mind, if by any chance he should have been dubious of the witnesses’ good faith.

As for Ascott, he was asking himself in ever-increasing bewilderment, if he were not the victim of a delusion, a nightmare, a hideous dream. Yes, he had a perfect recollection of the evening’s dinner that began so gaily, and he was bound to confess that at the end of the meal, taking advantage of old Moche’s absence, he had indeed wronged little Nini—though all the same, he could not help thinking the girl had not offered any very determined resistance. But of what might have happened afterwards, he could recall nothing whatever. He seemed to remember falling fast asleep, and he could not for an instant believe he had gone out to look for a pair of apaches to have Nini Guinon forcibly carried off to his house.... Yet, it might be so, for on the one hand they said it was, while on the other, on awakening he had actually found Nini fast asleep on the couch in his dressing room.

But presently the young Englishman began to ask himself what, after all, was the vast importance of all these incidents, and why such a mighty disturbance was being made over the adventure. He had not to wait long for the explanation!

Meanwhile, Nini was ready to go; the girl looked prettier than ever with her modest mien and assumed look of shamefacedness, as she made slowly for the door, by which “Bull’s-eye” and the “Gasman” had already taken their departure some while ago. After casting a long look of affection and reproach at her rich lover, she preceded her uncle and the magistrate as they left the room.

But before actually crossing the threshold, the magistrate called a halt, to point out to Ascott the consequences implied by his visit.

“All this, sir, makes it my duty,” he announced sternly, “to draw up an official report; you must be aware that the position in which you have placed yourself is a very serious one; it is a matter for the Criminal Assize, involving as it does, abduction of a minor, further aggravated by violation and rape. I ought, properly speaking, to arrest you. Be very grateful I do not do so, and hold yourself at the disposition of the Court.”

For a moment the young man was left alone in the room, but presently, plucking up his spirits, he sprang hurriedly to the door of the ante-room:

“Moche, Monsieur Moche!” he called the old man back in a voice choked with agitation. Moche was already half-way down the stairs, but he turned back and re-entered the room:

“What do you want with me, sir?” he asked, eyeing the Englishman haughtily up and down.

“Moche, come here,” said the latter, and hurriedly catching the other by the sleeve of his coat, he led him into an adjoining room, his library and study. In feverish haste he pulled open a drawer and took out a cheque-book. Dipping a pen in the ink, he paused before writing to ask:

“Monsieur Moche, how much?”

“Beg pardon!” said the old brigand.

Ascott, mastering his nerves, repeated once more:

“I ask you, how much do you want? this is a cheque I have here, which I am ready to sign in your favour; fix the amount yourself, and let us have done with this nonsense.”

A gleam of cupidity flashed in the usurer’s eyes, but that astute personage did not yield to the temptation. It was not in that fashion he hoped to bleed the Englishman; his project was more pretentious, his plan more complicated than that. The old man feigned the greatest indignation:

“It is shameful, sir; you insult me! After your villainous treatment of my niece, you offer me money. Sir, you mistake my character altogether! No, sir, I do not take that bait, the affair must follow its course!”

Ascott turned livid. “Moche,” he supplicated, “we are friends ...”

“We were friends, sir.”

“Moche!... Monsieur Moche! I cannot have a scandal!”

“Nini Guinon, my niece, sir, is dishonoured.”

“But, Moche, how can this be arranged?”

“There is but one way, sir, to right the wrong done, religion and society offer you the means.”

“Marriage, you mean?” he cried; “you would have me marry Nini Guinon ... you forget that I am a great nobleman!”

Moche corrected: “Lord Ascott, yes; but that’s not you, that is your father.”

“I am his son ...”

“His younger son, sir, which is by no means the same thing. There is nothing should hinder your marrying an honest girl whom you have led astray from the paths of duty.”

Ascott was obviously wavering. “Moche, my good friend, Moche!” he besought the old scamp, “there must be other ways of settling the question; I am rich, I care nothing for the money ...”

“Enough!” Père Moche cut him short peremptorily, “I have told you, sir, what a true-hearted gentleman, what a man of honour, would not for one instant hesitate to do. On the basis of repairing the wrong by marriage, you will find us always ready to listen to you, to facilitate matters; otherwise, it is of no use attempting to see me again”—and the old man marched majestically for the door, leaving Ascott absolutely dumbfounded, the pen trembling between his fingers, his cheque-book lying open before his eyes.

However, before finally going, M. Moche came to a halt on the threshold, and in a ringing voice, threw down a final challenge, a supreme work of menace and defiance:

“We shall meet again, sir ... in the Court of Assize.”