“Who is this lady, sir?” asked Rene, very quietly.

“God knows, boy!  Everybody’s mad to meet her, but nobody knows who she is.  But wait till you see her.  Lady Dascot seems to be acquainted with her, but you will see when they come to-morrow—­ see for yourself.  Gad, boy! . . . what did you say?”

“I did not speak.”

“Thought you did.  Have a whisky-and-soda?”

“No, thank you, sir—­good night.”

“Good night, boy!” cried the Colonel.  “Good night.  Don’t forget to be in to-morrow afternoon or you’ll miss meeting the loveliest woman in London, and the most brilliant.”

“What is her name?”

“Eh?  She calls herself Madame de Medici.  She’s a mystery, but what a splendid creature!”

Rene Deacon walked slowly upstairs, entered his bedroom, and for fully an hour sat in the darkness, thinking—­thinking.

“Am I going mad?” he murmured.  “Or is this witch driving all London mad?”

He strove to recover something of the glamour which had mastered him when in the presence of Madame de Medici, but failed.  Yet he knew that, once near her again, it would all return.  His reflections were bitter, and when at last wearily he undressed and went to bed it was to toss restlessly far into the small hours ere sleep came to soothe his troubled mind.

But his sleep was disturbed:  a series of dreadfully realistic dreams danced through his brain.  First he seemed to be standing upon a high mountain peak with eternal snows stretched all about him.  He looked down, past the snow line, past the fir woods, into the depths of a lovely lake, far down in the valley below.  It was a lake of liquid amber, and as he looked it seemed to become two lakes, and they were like two great eyes looking up at him and summoning him to leap.  He thought that he leaped, a prodigious leap, far out into space; then fell—­fell—­fell.  When he splashed into the amber deeps they became churned up in a milky foam, and this closed about him with a strangle grip.  But it was no longer foam, but the clinging arms of Madame de Medici! . . .

Then he stood upon a fragile bridge of bamboo spanning a raging torrent.  Right and left of the torrent below were jungles in which moved tigerish shapes.  Upon the farther side of the bridge Madame de Medici, clad in a single garment of flame-coloured silk, beckoned to him.  He sought to cross the bridge, but it collapsed, and he fell near the edge of the torrent.  Below were the raging waters, and ever nearing him the tigerish shapes, which now Madame was calling to as to a pack of hounds.  They were about to devour him, when------

He was crouching upon a ledge, high above a street which seemed to be vaguely familiar.  He could not see very well, because of a silk mask tied upon his face, and the eyeholes of which were badly cut.  From the ledge he stepped to another, perilously.  He gained it, and crouching there, where there was scarce foothold for a cat, he managed fully to raise a window which already was raised some six inches.  Then softly and silently—­for he was bare-footed—­he entered the room.