Nothing more.  The message was obviously not intended for him, and yet. ...  A strange excitement possessed him.  If it should be!  If ... !  He had heard—­everyone had—­of the mysterious agencies that were at work, under cover of darkness, to aid the unfortunate, the innocent, the helpless.  He had heard of that legendary English gentleman who had before now defied the closest vigilance of the Committees, and snatched their intended victims out of their murderous clutches, at times under their very eyes.

If this should be ... !  He scarce dared put his hope into words.  He could not bring himself really to believe.  But he went.  He ran downstairs and out into the street, took his stand under a projecting doorway nearly opposite the house which held the woman he loved, and leaning against the wall, he waited.

After many hours—­it was then past three o’clock in the morning, and the sky of an inky blackness—­he felt so numb that despite his will a kind of trance-like drowsiness overcame him.  He could no longer stand on his feet; his knees were shaking; his head felt so heavy that he could not keep it up.  It rolled round from shoulder to shoulder, as if his will no longer controlled it.  And it ached furiously.  Everything around him was very still.  Even “Paris-by-Night,” that grim and lurid giant, was for the moment at rest.  A warm summer rain was falling; its gentle, pattering murmur into the gutter helped to lull Kennard’s senses into somnolence.  He was on the point of dropping off to sleep when something suddenly roused him.  A noise of men shouting and laughing—­familiar sounds enough in these squalid Paris streets.

But Kennard was wide awake now; numbness had given place to intense quivering of all his muscles, and super-keenness of his every sense.  He peered into the darkness and strained his ears to hear.  The sound certainly appeared to come from the house opposite, and there, too, it seemed as if something or things were moving.  Men!  More than one or two, surely!  Kennard thought that he could distinguish at least three distinct voices; and there was that weird, racking cough which proclaimed the presence of Rateau.

Now the men were quite close to where he—­Kennard—­still stood cowering.  A minute or two later they had passed down the street.  Their hoarse voices soon died away in the distance.  Kennard crept cautiously out of his hiding-place.  Message or mere coincidence, he now blessed that mysterious scrap of paper.  Had he remained in his room, he might really have dropped off to sleep and not heard these men going away.  There were three of them at least—­Kennard thought four.  But, anyway, the number of watch-dogs outside the door of his beloved had considerably diminished.  He felt that he had the strength to grapple with them, even if there were still three of them left.  He, an athlete, English, and master of the art of self-defence; and they, a mere pack of drink-sodden brutes!  Yes!  He was quite sure he could do it.  Quite sure that he could force his way into Esther’s rooms and carry her off in his arms—­whither?  God alone knew.  And God alone would provide.