d an instant like a
man taking aim "and when I saw the lady slip the money into
monsieur's pocket while he slept, and reflected that he would never
even know that he had lost it."

"Eh?" Raleigh sat up. The thief suppressed a smile. "What lady,
espece de fourneau? What are you talking about?"

"It's not a minute ago," replied the youth, discarding the whine.
"See, she is perhaps not out of sight yet, if monsieur will look
along the path. No, there she goes that one!"

His hand was free now; he was using it to point with; but he made no
attempt to escape.

"She approached monsieur while he slept, walking cautiously, and
slipped the money it was a five-franc piece, I think into his pocket.
Yes, monsieur, that was the pocket."

He smiled patronizingly as Raleigh plunged a hand into the pocket in
question, fumbled among the papers there, and drew out the coin and
stared at it. He had the situation in hand now; he could get rid of
this strong young man as soon as he pleased.

"She is going out of the gate now, monsieur," he said.

Raleigh turned. At the farther end of the path the woman who had been
pointed out to him was close to the exit; in a few seconds more she
would be gone. He could see of her nothing save her back that and a
certain quality of carriage, a gait measured and deliberate.

He threw a word to the thief, who stood by with his hands in his
pockets and an air of relishing the situation. "All right; you can
go," he said, and started upon the chase of the secret bestower of
alms.

"And me?" the outraged thief cried after him in tones of bitterness.
"And me? I get nothing, then?"

The serge-clad back was disappearing through the gates into the
welter of sunlight without; Raleigh gathered up his feet and sprinted
along the tree shaded path. He was going to understand this business.
He picked up the view of the serge-clad back again, walking towards
the bridge, hastened after it and slowed down to its own pace when he
was still some ten yards behind.

"Why, it's a girl!"

Somehow, he had counted upon finding an elderly woman, some
charitable eccentric who acquired merit by secret gifts. He saw,
instead, a slim girl, neatly and quietly clad, whose profile, as she
glanced across the parapet of the bridge, showed pearl-pale in the
shadow of her hat, with a simple and almost childlike prettiness of
feature. There was something else, too, a quality of the whole which
Raleigh, who did not deal in fine