"It's awfully good of you," Charles Rambert said gratefully. "I should love to be able to earn my living by work so much to my taste."
Juve cut his thanks short, and held out some bank-notes.
"There's some money; now clear out; it's high time we both got a little sleep. Get busy settling into rooms, and in a fortnight I shall expect you to be editor of _La Capitale_."
"Under what name shall you introduce me to your friend?" Charles Rambert asked, after a little nervous pause.
"H'm!" said Juve with a smile: "it will have to be an alias of course."
"Yes; and as it will be the name I shall write under it ought to be an easy one to remember."
"Something arresting, like Fantômas!" said Juve chaffingly, amused by the curious childishness of this lad, who could take keen interest in such a trifle when he was in so critical a situation. "Choose something not too common for the first name; and something short for the other. Why not keep the first syllable of Fantômas? Oh, I've got it--Fandor; what about Jérôme Fandor?"
"Jérôme Fandor! Yes, you are right, it sounds well."
"Well, Jérôme Fandor, leave me to my slumbers, and go and rig yourself out, and get ready for the new life that I'm going to open up for you!"
Bewildered by the amazing adventures of which he had just been the central figure, Charles Rambert, or Jérôme Fandor, walked down Juve's staircase wondering. "Why should he take so much trouble about me? What interest or what motive can he have? And how on earth does he find out such a wonderful lot of things?"
After the tragic death of her husband, Lady Beltham--whose previous life had inclined to the austere--withdrew into almost complete retirement. The world of gaiety and fashion knew her no more. But in the world where poverty and suffering reign, in hospital wards and squalid streets, a tall and beautiful woman might often be seen, robed all in black, with distinguished bearing and eyes serene and grave, distributing alms and consolation as she moved. It was Lady Beltham, kind, good and very pitiful, bent on the work of charity to which she had vowed her days.
Yet she had not allowed herself to be crushed by sorrow; after the tragedy which left her a widow, she had assumed the effective control of her husband's property, and, helped by faithful friends, had carried on his interests and administered his estates, spreading a halo of kindness all around her.