The last words that Audrey caught sounded to her listening ears like the calling of a man by his name:—
“Oh, Eugène, Eugène!”
A chill seized Audrey, and she drew back, frightened, asking herself in a wild impulse of suspicion and dread whether this “Eugène” were some evil genius, the same that had cast his blighting hand upon the fate of Gerard and herself?
Then she heard a door shut, and peering through behind the portière into the inner room, she saw that no one was there.
The building of which this first floor formed a part had been extended at the back, and behind this second large showroom there were two or three smaller rooms, one of which was that of Mademoiselle Laure, and another a private fitting-room. It was this room the door of which Audrey had heard close, and trying it, she now found that it was locked.
She heard voices within, subdued, angry, the whispering voices of a man and a woman, speaking some language which Audrey could not understand.
She knocked, but there was no reply.
Hurriedly withdrawing, therefore, without speaking a word, Audrey went out upon the staircase, and into her own private room, where she kept her walking dress. Changing quickly into this, she had just put on her hat, with the intention of going downstairs to meet Mademoiselle Laure on her return and to consult with her as to what she had better do, when she was startled by the sound of the unlocking of a door, and then by footsteps running rapidly down the stairs.
She flew to the door and looked out; but she was too late to see more than this: that the person who was dashing down the stairs and disappearing by the side door into the street was a man.
Who was it?