erve her
manifestations.

Mrs. Greyne was considerably shaken by the event of the previous night.
Although, on the discovery of the diary, the house had been roused, and
all the servants closely questioned, no light had been thrown upon its
migration from the locked drawer to the schoolroom table. Adolphus and
Olivia, jerked from sleep by the hasty hands of a maid, could only weep
and wan. The powdered footmen, one and all, declared they had never
heard of a diary. The butler gave warning on the spot, keeping on his
nightcap to give greater effect to his pronunciamento. It was all most
unsatisfactory, and for one wild moment Mrs. Greyne seriously thought
of retaining her husband by her as a protection against the mysterious
thief who had been at work in their midst. Could it be Mademoiselle
Verbena? The dread surmise occurred, but Mr. Greyne rejected it.

"Her father was a count," he said. "Besides, my darling, I don't
believe she can read English; certainly not unless it is printed."

So there the matter rested, and the moment of parting came.

There was a murmur of respectful sympathy as Mrs. Greyne clasped
her husband tenderly in her arms, and pressed his head against her
prune-coloured bonnet strings. The whistle sounded. The train moved on.
Leaning from a reserved first-class compartment, Mr. Greyne waved a silk
pocket-handkerchief so long as his wife's Roman profile stood out clear
against the fog and smoke of London. But at last it faded, grew remote,
took on the appearance of a feebly-executed crayon drawing, vanished. He
sank back upon the cushions--alone. Darrell was travelling second with
the dressing-case.

It was a strange sensation, to be alone, and _en route_ to Algiers. Mr.
Greyne scarcely knew what to make of it. A schoolboy suddenly despatched
to Timbuctoo could hardly have felt more terribly emancipated than he
did. He was so absolutely unaccustomed to freedom, he had been for so
long without the faintest desire for it, that to have it thrust upon
him so suddenly was almost alarming. He felt lonely, anxious, horribly
unmarried. To divert his thoughts he drew forth a Merrin's exercise-book
and a pencil, and wrote on the first page, in large letters, "_African
Frailty, Notes for_" Then he sat gazing at the title of his first
literary work, and wondering what on earth he was going to see in
Algiers.

Vague visions of himself in the bars of African public-houses, in
mosques, in the two-pair-backs o