“When is he going to start?”
“By the rapide (limited express) of to-night.”
The two men looked sharply at one another for a few seconds. They had understood each other.
Negligently and without apparent intention Ybanez continued to speak of his Italian friend, and casually gave Frederick a full and minute description of his personal appearance.
CHAPTER XXIV.
HIS SINS FOUND HIM OUT.
That same evening at the Gare de Lyons, a minute before the train started out of the station, a man dressed in a gray overcoat and wearing a soft felt traveling hat was hustled by the conductor into a coupe which until then had been tenanted by one solitary traveler. A shade of annoyance passed over the face of the latter as the door opened. It was evident that he had hoped to remain in undisturbed possession of the compartment. But he soon regained his equanimity. For from the fussy manner in which the intruder collected and arranged in the netting his impediments, among which was a lunch-basket, he surmised that he had to deal with a petit bourgeois, probably a small shop-keeper, who was totally unaccustomed to travel any farther than Bougival or Asnieres.