e din of the hurrying station. "I don't want
_luggage_." The humour of the proposition appealed to him so mightily
that he went off into one of his reverberating explosions of mirth.

"Ho! ho! ho!" Then recovering--"Don't you worry about that."

"But have you enough on you--it's an expensive journey--of course I
should be most happy--"

Jaffery stepped back and scanned the length of the platform and beckoned
to an official, who came hurrying towards him. It was the station
master.

"Have you ever seen me before, Mr. Winter?"

The official laughed. "Pretty often, Mr. Chayne."

"Do you think I could get from here to Nice without buying a ticket
now?"

"Why, of course, our agent at Boulogne will arrange it if I send him a
wire."

"Right," said Jaffery. "Please do so, Mr. Winter. I'm crossing now and
going to Nice by the Cote d'Azur Express to-morrow night. And see after
a seat for me, will you?"

"I'll reserve a compartment if possible, Mr. Chayne."

The station master raised his hat and departed. Jaffery, his hands
stuffed deep in his pockets, beamed upon us like a mountainous child. We
were all impressed by his lordly command of the railway systems of
Europe. It was a question of credit, of course, but neither Mr.
Jornicroft, solid man that he was, nor myself could have undertaken that
journey with a few loose shillings in his possession. For the first time
since Adrian's death I saw Jaffery really enjoying himself.

And that is how Jaffery without money or luggage or even an overcoat
travelled from London to Nice, for no other purpose than to save Doria's
sacred little body from being profaned by the touch of ruder hands.

Having carried her at every stage beginning with the transfer from train
to steamer at Folkestone and ending with a triumphant march up the
stairs to the third floor of the Cimiez hotel, he took the first train
back straight through to London.

He returned the same old grinning giant, without a shadow of grumpiness
on his jolly face.

CHAPTER XIII

About this time a bolt came from the blue or a bomb fell at our
feet--the metaphor doesn't matter so long as it conveys a sense of an
unlooked-for phenomenon. True, in relation to cosmic forces, it was but
a trumpery bolt or a squib-like bomb; but it startled us all the same.
The admirable Mrs. Considine got married. A retired warrior, a recent
widower, but a celibate of twenty years standing owing to the fact that
his late wife