As he had suggested it would, Gillian's collapse had delayed them some
time. Probably she had caught a slight chill while travelling, and that,
together with the fatigue from which she was suffering, combined to keep
her in bed at the hotel in Rome for a couple of days.

When the slight feverishness had abated, she slept the greater part of
the time, her weary body exacting the price for all those wakeful hours
she had passed on the train. But it was not until four days had elapsed
that Dan would agree to a resumption of the journey. Even then, consent
was only wrung from him by the fear that she would fret herself ill over
any further delay. He did not consider her by any means fit to travel.
But Gillian was game to the core, and they had reached Bayeux without
further _contretemps_.

"The thing that puzzles me," she said as they started on the long drive
from Bayeux to Armanches, "is why Michael didn't send his Normandy
address to Madame Ribot. We should have been saved all that long journey
to Rome if he had."

"Perhaps he intended to, and forgot," suggested Dan. "Artists are
proverbially absent-minded."

But Gillian shook her head with a dissatisfied air. Michael was not of
the absent-minded type.

Armanches was a tiny place on the Normandy coast, in reality not
much more than a fishing village, but its possession of a beautiful
_plage_--smooth, fine, golden sands--brought many visitors to the
old-fashioned hostelry it boasted.

The landlady, a smiling, rosy-cheeked woman, with a chubby little
brown-faced son hiding shy embarrassment behind her ample skirts,
greeted the travellers hospitably. But when they mentioned Quarrington's
name a look of sympathetic concern overspread her comely face.

Yes, he was there. And of course madame could not know, but he had
been ill, seriously ill with _la grippe_--taken ill the very day he had
arrived, nearly a month ago. He had a nurse. Oh, yes! One had come from
Bayeux. But this influenza! It was a veritable scourge. One was here
to-day and gone to-morrow. However, Michael Quarrington was recovering,
the saints be praised! Monsieur and madame wished to see him? The good
woman looked doubtful. She would inquire. What name? Grey? But there was
a telegram awaiting madame!

Gillian's face blanched as the landlady bustled away in search of the
wire. Had Magda already----Oh, but that was impossible! Lady Arabella
was in charge at that end, and Gillian had a great belief in L