the truth when she said she was a governess, and at the next I
suspected her of trying to deceive.

Presently, after she had handed me a cigarette, the servant tapped at
the door, and a well-dressed man entered--the same man I had seen leave
the house two nights previously.

"May I introduce you?" mademoiselle asked. "M'sieur Ewart--M'sieur le
Baron de Moret."

"Charmed to make your acquaintance, sir," the Baron said, grasping my
hand. "Mademoiselle here has already spoken of you."

"The satisfaction is mutual, I assure you, Baron," was my reply, and
then we re-seated ourselves and began to chat.

Suddenly mademoiselle made some remark in a language which I did not
understand. The effect it had upon the new-comer was almost electrical.
He started from his seat, glaring at her. Then he began to question her
rapidly in the unknown tongue.

He was a flashily-dressed man, of overbearing manner, with a thick neck
and square, determined chin. It was quite evident that the warning I had
given them aroused their apprehensions, for they held a rapid
consultation, and then Julie went out, returning with another man, a
dark-haired, lowbred-looking foreigner, who spoke the same tongue as his
companions.

They disregarded my presence altogether in their eager consultation,
therefore I rose to go; for I saw that I was not wanted.

Julie held my hand and looked into my eyes in mute appeal. She appeared
anxious to say something to me in private. At least that was my
impression.

When I left the house I passed, at the end of the Crescent, a shabby man
idly smoking. Was he one of the watchers?

Four days went by. Soon my rest would be at an end, and I should be
travelling at a moment's notice with Blythe and Bindo to the farther end
of Europe.

One evening I was passing through the great hall of the Hotel Cecil to
descend to the American bar, where I frequently had a cocktail, when a
neatly-dressed figure in black rose and greeted me. It was Julie, who
had probably been awaiting me an hour or more.

"May I speak to you?" she asked breathlessly, when we had exchanged
greetings. "I wish to apologise for the manner in which I treated you
the other evening."

I assured her that no apologies were needed, and together we strolled up
and down the courtyard between the hotel entrance and the Strand.

"I really ought not to trouble you with my affairs," she said presently,
in an apologetic tone, "but you remember what I told yo