w, by your aid, I shall be able to save myself. Otherwise,
to-morrow my body would have been exposed in the Morgue--the corpse of a
woman unknown."

"These words of yours interest me."

"Ah! m'sieur, you do not know. And I cannot tell you. It is a
secret--ah! if I only dare speak you would help me, I know;" and I saw
in her face a look full of apprehension and distress.

As she raised her hand to push the dark hair from her brow, as though it
oppressed her, my eyes caught sight of something glistening upon her
wrist, half concealed by the lace on her sleeve. It was a magnificent
diamond bangle.

Surely such an ornament would not be worn by a mere governess! I looked
again into her handsome face, and wondered if she were deceiving me.

"If it be in my power to assist you, mademoiselle, I will do so with the
greatest pleasure. But of course I cannot without knowing the
circumstances."

"And I regret that my lips are closed concerning them," she sighed,
looking straight before her despairingly.

"Do you not fear to go alone?"

"I fear them no longer," was her reply, as she glanced at the little
gold watch in her bracelet. "We shall be in Paris before ten
o'clock--thanks to you, m'sieur."

"Well, when you first made the request I had no idea of the urgency of
your journey," I remarked. "But I'm glad, very glad, that I've had an
opportunity of rendering you some slight service."

"Slight, m'sieur? Why, you have saved me. I owe you a debt which I can
never repay--never;" and the laces at her throat rose and fell as she
sighed, her wonderful eyes still fixed upon me.

Gradually the yellow sun rose over the bare frozen lands over which we
were speeding, and when at last we entered Paris, I set her down in the
Place Vendome.

"Au revoir, m'sieur, till twelve, at the Rue Royale," she exclaimed,
with a merry smile and a bow, as she drove away in a cab, leaving me
upon the kerb gazing after her and wondering.

Was she really a governess, as she pretended?

Her clothes, her manner, her smart chatter, her exquisite _chic_, all
revealed good breeding and a high station in life. There was no touch of
cheap shabbiness--or at least I could not detect it.

A few moments before twelve she alighted from the cab at the corner of
the Rue Royale and greeted me merrily. Her face was slightly flushed,
and I thought her hand trembled as I took it. But together we mounted
into the car again.

"You seem a constant traveller on