a safe refuge, play what pranks she might,
and there she would to-morrow meet those bravest of defenders Sol and
Dan, to whom she had sent as much money as she could conveniently spare
towards their expenses, with directions that they were to come by the
most economical route, and meet her at the house of her aunt, Madame
Moulin, previous to their educational trip to Paris, their own
contribution being the value of the week's work they would have to lose.
Thus backed up by Sol and Dan, her aunt, and Cornelia, Ethelberta felt
quite the reverse of a lonely female persecuted by a wicked lord in a
foreign country. 'He shall pay for his weaknesses, whatever they mean,'
she thought; 'and what they mean I will find out at once.'

'I am going to Paris,' she said.

'You cannot to-night, I think.'

'To-morrow, I mean.'

'I should like to go on to-morrow. Perhaps I may. So that there is a
chance of our meeting again.'

'Yes; but I do not leave Rouen till the afternoon. I first shall go to
the cathedral, and drive round the city.'

Lord Mountclere smiled pleasantly. There seemed a sort of encouragement
in her words. Ethelberta's thoughts, however, had flown at that moment
to the approaching situation at her aunt's hotel: it would be extremely
embarrassing if he should go there.

'Where do you stay, Lord Mountclere?' she said.

Thus directly asked, he could not but commit himself to the name of the
hotel he had been accustomed to patronize, which was one in the upper
part of the city.

'Mine is not that one,' said Ethelberta frigidly.

No further remark was made under this head, and they conversed for the
remainder of the daylight on scenery and other topics, Lord Mountclere's
air of festivity lending him all the qualities of an agreeable companion.
But notwithstanding her resolve, Ethelberta failed, for that day at
least, to make her mind clear upon Lord Mountclere's intentions. To that
end she would have liked first to know what were the exact limits set by
society to conduct under present conditions, if society had ever set any
at all, which was open to question: since experience had long ago taught
her that much more freedom actually prevails in the communion of the
sexes than is put on paper as etiquette, or admitted in so many words as
correct behaviour. In short, everything turned upon whether he had
learnt of her position when off the platform at Mayfair Hall.

Wearied with these surmises, and the day's