al. "It is not until late in the afternoon that
the traffic begins. Times have changed on the Riviera, and so many
people go to Cannes. The old road is almost now deserted."

At eleven o'clock Mr. Briggerland came to a certain part of the road and
found a hiding-place for his motor-cycle--a small plantation of olive
trees on the hill side. Incidentally it was an admirable resting place,
for from here he commanded an extensive view of the western road.

Lydia's journey had been no less enjoyable. She, too, had stopped at
Mentone to explore the town, and had left Pont St. Louis an hour after
Mr. Briggerland had passed.

The road to San Remo runs under the shadow of steep hills through a
bleak stretch of country from which even the industrious peasantry of
northern Italy cannot win a livelihood. Save for isolated patches of
cultivated land, the hills are bare and menacing.

With these gaunt plateaux on one side and the rock-strewn seashore on
the other, there was little to hold the eye save an occasional glimpse
of the Italian town in the far distance. There was a wild uncouthness
about the scenery which awed the girl. Sometimes the car would be
running so near the sea level that the spray of the waves hit the
windows; sometimes it would climb over an out-jutting headland and she
would look down upon a bouldered beach a hundred feet below.

It was on the crest of a headland that the car stopped.

Here the road ran out in a semi-circle so that from where she sat she
could not see its continuation either before or behind. Ahead it slipped
round the shoulder of a high and over-hanging mass of rock, through
which the road must have been cut. Behind it dipped down to a cove,
hidden from sight.

"There is the Lovers' Chair, mademoiselle," said Mordon.

Half a dozen feet beneath the road level was a broad shelf of rock. A
few stone steps led down and she followed them. The Lovers' Chair was
carved in the face of the rock and she sat down to view the beauty of
the scene. The solitude, the stillness which only the lazy waves broke,
the majesty of the setting, brought a strange peace to her. Beyond the
edge of the ledge the cliff fell sheer to the water, and she shivered as
she stepped back from her inspection.

Mordon did not see her go. He sat on the running board of his car, his
pale face between his hands, a prey to his own gloomy thoughts. There
must be a development, he told himself. He was beginning to get uneasy,
a