light
accent of a well-educated foreigner. Her eyes seemed to be wandering
all over me and my possessions, yet her interest, if it amounted to
that, never even suggested curiosity or inquisitiveness.

"It is scarcely a pleasant journey at this time of night," I remarked.

"Indeed, no," she assented. "I wonder if you know my name? I am Mrs.
Smith-Lessing, of Braster Grange. And you?"

"My name is Guy Ducaine," I told her. "I live at a small cottage called
the 'Brand.'"

"That charming little place you can just see from the sands?" she
exclaimed. "I thought the Duke's head-keeper lived there."

"It was a keeper's lodge before the Duke was kind enough to let it to
me," I told her.

She nodded.

"It is a very delightful abode," she murmured.

She picked up her book, and after turning over the pages aimlessly for a
few minutes, she recommenced to read. I followed her example; but when
a little later on I glanced across in her direction, I found that her
eyes were fixed upon me, and that her novel lay in her lap.

"My book is so stupid," she said apologetically. "I find, Mr.
Ducaine," she added with sudden earnestness, "the elements of a much
stranger story closer at hand."

"That," I remarked, laying down my own book, and looking steadily across
at her, "sounds enigmatic."

"I think," she said, "that I am very foolish to talk to you at all about
it. If you know who I am, you are probably armed against me at all
points. You will weigh and measure my words, you will say to yourself,
'Lies, lies, lies!' You will not believe in me or anything I say. And,
again, if you do not know, the story is too painful a one for me to
tell."

"Then let us both avoid it," I said, reaching again for my paper. "We
shall stop at Ipswich in an hour. I will change carriages there."

She turned round in her seat towards the window, as though to hide her
face. My own attempt at reading was a farce. I watched her over the
top of my paper. She was looking out into the darkness, and she seemed
to me to be crying. Every now and then her shoulders heaved
convulsively. Suddenly she faced me once more. There were traces of
tears on her face; a small lace handkerchief was knotted up in her
nervous fingers.

"Oh, I cannot," she exclaimed plaintively. "I cannot sit here alone
with you and say nothing. I know that I am judged already. It does not
matter. I am your father's wife, Guy. You owe me at least some
recognition of that fact."

"I n