man who had been my fellow-traveller from York almost
immediately preceding my strange adventures in the heart of London.

My conversation with her had been, to say the least, highly
illuminating, and I had learnt several facts of which I had been in
ignorance. But this fixed assertion that she knew nothing of the
elusive Frenchman aroused my suspicions.

What was she hiding from me?

I felt that she was concealing some very essential point--one that
might well prove the clue to the whole puzzling enigma.

And while we spoke the girl's clear contralto rang out, while she
herself played the accompaniment.

At length I saw that I could obtain no further information from the
servant, therefore I begged to be introduced to her young mistress,
assuring her of my keen interest in the most puzzling problem.

Apparently relieved that I pressed her no further regarding the
handsome but insidious Frenchman, the woman at once ushered me into
the adjoining room--a small but well-furnished one--where at the grand
piano sat the girl whose eyes were fixed, though not sightless as I
had believed when in Florence.

She turned them suddenly upon my companion, and stopped playing.

"Ah! dear Alford!" she exclaimed, "I wondered if you were at home."
Then she paused. She apparently had no knowledge of my presence, for
she had not turned to me, though I stood straight in her line of gaze.
"I thought you had gone out to see Monsieur--to tell him my message."
She again paused, and drew her breath.

I stood gazing upon her beautiful face, dark, tragic and full of
mystery. She sat at the piano, her white fingers inert upon the keys.

She wore a simple navy blue frock, cut low in the neck with a touch of
cream upon it, and edged with scarlet piping--a dress which at that
moment was the mode.

Yet her pale, blank countenance was indeed pathetic, a face upon which
tragedy was written. I stood for a moment gazing upon her, perplexed,
bewildered and breathless in mystery.

I spoke. She rose from her seat, and turned to me.

Her reply, low and tense, staggered me!

CHAPTER THE TWELFTH

"RED, GREEN AND GOLD!"

"I know you!" she cried, staring at me as though transformed by
terror. "They told me you would come! You are my enemy--you are here
to kill me!"

"To kill you, Miss Tennison!" I gasped. "No, I am certainly not your
enemy. I am your friend!"

She looked very hard at me, and I noticed that her lips twitched
slightly