stopped. Her small, white fingers, with their large rheumatic knuckles,
lay flat on her lips as she stood for an instant musing; then she trotted
lightly to a bureau, got pen and paper and ink, reached down a bunch of
keys from the mantel, and came and put them all beside the bowl and the
pipe. Still the Avocat did not stir, or show that he recognised her.
She went to the door, turned, and looked back, her fingers again at her
lips, then slowly sidled out of the room. It was long before the Avocat
moved. His eyes had not wavered from the space between the candles. At
last, however, he glanced down. His eye caught the bowl, then the pipe.
He reached out a slow hand for the pipe, and was taking it up, when his
glance fell on the keys and the writing material. He put the pipe down,
looked up at the door through which the little old woman had gone, gazed
round the room, took up the keys, but soon put them down again with a
sigh, and settled back in his chair. Now his gaze alternated between
that long lane, sloping into shadow between the candles, and the keys.

Medallion threw a leg over the fence and came in a few steps to the door.
He opened it quietly and entered. In the dark he felt his way along the
wall to the door of the Avocat's room, opened it, and thrust in his
ungainly, whimsical face.

"Ha!" he laughed with quick-winking eyes. "Evening, Garon. Live the
Code Napoleon! Pipes for two." A change came slowly over the Avocat.
His eyes drew away from that vista between the candles, and the strange
distant look faded out of them.

"Great is the Code Napoleon!" he said mechanically. Then, presently:
"Ah, my friend, Medallion!"

His first words were the answer to a formula which always passed between