Drifting, drifting
daily down happy hours to the knowledge of their own ardent feelings.
Natalie absolutely debars all other visitors from meeting her young
ward. Only her physician and Pere Francois can watch these studio
labors. She fears Hardin's emissaries only.
Many visits to the studio are made by Villa Rocca. He is a lover
of the "beaux-arts."
The days fly by pleasantly. Natalie is playing a cool game now.
Pere Francois and Raoul Dauvray are ever in her charmed circle.
She dare not refuse the friendship of the inscrutable priest. She
watches, cat-like, for some sign or token of the absent Louise Moreau.
Nothing. Colonel Joseph's sagacity has arranged all communication
from the Swiss lakes, through his trusted banker. It is a blind
trail.
Vimont, eying Natalie and Villa Rocca keenly, reports that he cannot
fathom their relations. Guilty lovers? No. There is no obstacle at
all to their marriage. Then why not a consummation? "Accomplices?"
"In what crime?" "Surely none!" The count is of station undoubted.
A member of the Jockey Club. Natalie de Santos speaks frankly to
Pere Francois of her obligations to the dead woman. That mysterious
assailant still defies the famed police of Paris.
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