had to be made.  That little room, though, had three doors.  One opened into Natacha’s chamber, one into the drawing-room, and the third into the little passage in a corner of the house where was the stairway by which the servants passed from the kitchens to the ground-floor and the upper floor.  This passage had also a door giving directly upon the drawing-room.  It was certainly a poor arrangement for serving the dining-room, which was on the other side of the drawing-room and behind the veranda, such a chance laying-out of a house as one often sees in the off-hand planning of many places in the country.

Alone again with Rouletabille, Matrena noticed that he had not lost sight of the corner of the veranda where Natacha had hung her hat.  Beside this hat there was a toque that Ermolai had brought in.  The old servant had found it in some corner of the garden or the conservatory where he had been.  A hat-pin stuck out of that toque also.

“Whose toque is that?” asked Rouletabille.  “I haven’t seen it on the head of anyone here.”

“It is Natacha’s,” replied Matrena.

She moved toward it, but the young man held her back, went into the veranda himself, and, without touching it, standing on tiptoe, he examined the pin.  He sank back on his heels and turned toward Matrena.  She caught a glimpse of fleeting emotion on the face of her little friend.

“Explain to me,” she said.

But be gave her a glance that frightened her, and said low: 

“Go and give orders right away that dinner be served in the veranda.  All through dinner it is absolutely necessary that the door of Natacha’s sitting-room, and that of the stairway passage, and that of the veranda giving on the drawing-room remain open all the time.  Do you understand me?  As soon as you have given your orders go to the general’s chamber and do not quit the general’s bedside, keep it in view.  Come down to dinner when it is announced, and do not bother yourself about anything further.”

So saying, he filled his pipe, lighted it with a sort of sigh of relief, and, after a final order to Matrena, “Go,” he went into the garden, puffing great clouds.  Anyone would have said he hadn’t smoked in a week.  He appeared not to be thinking but just idly enjoying himself.  In fact, he played like a child with Milinki, Matrena’s pet cat, which he pursued behind the shrubs, up into the little kiosque which, raised on piles, lifted its steep thatched roof above the panorama of the isles that Rouletabille settled down to contemplate like an artist with ample leisure.