What could these odd words mean? At what was Madame Wachner working?

A sudden feeling of discomfort came over Sylvia. Then the stout, jolly-looking woman was not without private anxieties and cares? There had been something so weary as well as so angry in the tone in which Madame Wachner spoke to her beloved "Ami Fritz."

A moment later he was hurrying towards the gate.

"Sophie," he cried out from the garden, "the carriage is here! Come along—we have wasted too much time already—"

Like Anna Wolsky, Monsieur Wachner grudged every moment spent away from the tables.

Madame Wachner hurried her two guests into her bed-room to put on their hats.

Anna Wolsky walked over to the window.

"What a strange, lonely place to live in!" she said, and drew the lace shawl she was wearing a little more closely about her thin shoulders. "And that wood over there—I should be afraid to live so near a wood! I should think that there might be queer people concealed there."

"Bah! Why should we be frightened, even if there were queer people there!"

"Well, but sometimes you must have a good deal of money in this house."

Madame Wachner laughed.

"When we have so much money that we cannot carry it about, and that, alas! is not very often—but still, when Fritz makes a big win, we go into Paris and bank the money."

"I do not trouble to do that," said Anna, "for I always carry all my money about with me. What do you do?" she turned to Sylvia Bailey.

"I leave it in my trunk at the hotel," said Sylvia. "The servants at the Villa du Lac seem to be perfectly honest—in fact they are mostly related to the proprietor, M. Polperro."

"Oh, but that is quite wrong!" exclaimed Madame Wachner, eagerly. "You should never leave your money in the hotel; you should always carry it about with you—in little bags like this. See!"

Again she suddenly lifted the light alpaca skirt she was wearing, as she had done before, in this very room, on the occasion of Sylvia's first visit to the Chalet. "That is the way to carry money in a place like this!" she said, smiling. "But now hurry, or all our evening will be gone!"

They left the house, and hastened down the garden to the gate, where L'Ami Fritz received his wife with a grumbling complaint that they had been so long.

And he was right, for the Casino was very full. Sylvia made no attempt to play. Somehow she did not care for the Club when Count Paul was not there.

She was glad when she was at last able to leave the others for the Villa du Lac.

Anna Wolsky accompanied her friend to the entrance of the Casino. The Comte de Virieu was just coming in as Sylvia went out; bowing distantly to the two ladies, he hurried through the vestibule towards the Club.

Sylvia's heart sank. Not even after spending a day with his beloved sister could he resist the lure of play!



CHAPTER XI

During much of the night that followed Sylvia lay awake, her mind full of the Comte de Virieu, and of the strange friendship which had sprung up between them.

Their brief meeting at the door of the Casino had affected her very painfully. As he had passed her with a distant bow, a look of shame, of miserable unease, had come over Count Paul's face.

Yes, Madame Wachner had summed him up very shrewdly, if unkindly. He was ashamed, not only of the way in which he was wasting his life, but also of the company into which his indulgence of his vice of gambling brought him.

And Sylvia—it was a bitter thought—was of that company. That fact must be faced by her. True, she was not a gambler in the sense that most of the people she met and saw daily at the Casino were gamblers, but that was simply because the passion of play did not absorb her as it did them. It was her good fortune, not any virtue in herself, that set her apart from Anna Wolsky.

And now she asked herself—or rather her conscience asked her—whether she would not do well to leave Lacville; to break off this strange and—yes, this dangerous intimacy with a man of whom she knew so very little, apart from the great outstanding fact that he was a confirmed gambler, and that he had given up all that makes life worth living to such a man as he, in order to drag on a dishonoured, purposeless life at one or other of the great gambling centres of the civilised world?

And yet the thought of going away from Lacville was already intolerable to Sylvia. There had arisen between the Frenchman and herself a kind of close, wordless understanding and sympathy which she, at any rate, still called "friendship." But she would probably have assented to Meredith's words, "Friendship, I fancy, means one heart between two."

At last she fell into a troubled sleep, and dreamt a disturbing dream.

She found herself wandering about the Chalet des Muguets, trying to find a way out of the locked and shuttered building. The ugly little rooms were empty. It was winter, and she was shivering with cold. Someone must have locked her in by mistake. She had been forgotten....

"Toc, toc, toc!" at the door. And Sylvia sat up in bed relieved of her nightmare. It was eight o'clock! She had overslept herself. Felicie was bringing in her tea, and on the tray lay a letter addressed in a handwriting Sylvia did not know, and on which was a French stamp.

She turned the pale-grey envelope over doubtfully, wondering if it was really meant for her. But yes—of that there could be no doubt, for it was addressed, "Madame Bailey, Villa du Lac, Lacville-les-Bains."

She opened it to find that the note contained a gracefully-worded invitation to dejeuner for the next day, and the signature ran—"Marie-Anne d'Eglemont."

Why, it must be Paul de Virieu's sister! How very kind of her, and—and how very kind of him.

The letter must have been actually written when Count Paul was in Paris with his sister—and yet, when they had passed one another the evening before, he had bowed as distantly, as coldly, as he might have done to the most casual of acquaintances.

Sylvia got up, filled with a tumult of excited feeling which this simple invitation to luncheon scarcely warranted.

But Paul de Virieu came in from his ride also eager, excited, smiling.

"Have you received a note from my sister?" he asked, hurrying towards her in the dining-room which they now had to themselves each morning. "When I told her how you and I had become"—he hesitated a moment, and then added the words, "good friends, she said how much she would like to meet you. I know that you and my dear Marie-Anne would like one another—"

"It is very kind of your sister to ask me to come and see her," said Sylvia, a little stiffly.

"I am going back to Paris this evening," he went on, "to stay with my sister for a couple of nights. So if you can come to-morrow to lunch, as I think my sister has asked you to do, I will meet you at the station."

After breakfast they went out into the garden, and when they were free of the house Count Paul said suddenly,

"I told Marie-Anne that you were fond of riding, and, with your permission, she proposes to send over a horse for you every morning. And, Madame—forgive me—but I told her I feared you had no riding habit! You and she, however, are much the same height, and she thinks that she might be able to lend you one if you will honour her by accepting the loan of it during the time you are at Lacville."

Sylvia was bewildered, she scarcely knew how to accept so much kindness.

"If you will write a line to my sister some time to-day," continued the Count, "I will be the bearer of your letter."

* * * * *

That day marked a very great advance in the friendship of Sylvia Bailey and Paul de Virieu.

Till that day, much as he had talked to her about himself and his life, and the many curious adventures he had had, for he had travelled a great deal, and was a cultivated man, he had very seldom spoken to her of his relations.

But to-day he told her a great deal about them, and she found herself taking a very keen, intimate interest in this group of French people whom she had never seen—whom, perhaps, with one exception, she never would see.

How unlike English folk they must be—these relations of Count Paul! For the matter of that, how unlike any people Sylvia had ever seen or heard of.

First, he told her of the sweet-natured, pious young duchess who was to be her hostess on the morrow—the sister whom Paul loved so dearly, and to whom he owed so much.

Then he described, in less kindly terms, her proud narrow-minded, if generous, husband, the French duke who still lived—thanks to the fact that his grandmother had been the daughter of a great Russian banker—much as must have lived the nobles in the Middle Ages—apart, that is, from everything that would remind him that there was anything in the world of which he disapproved or which he disliked.

The Duc d'Eglemont ignored the fact that France was a Republic; he still talked of "the King," and went periodically into waiting on the Duke of Orleans.

Count Paul also told Sylvia of his great-uncle and godfather, the Cardinal, who lived in Italy, and who had—or so his family liked to believe—so nearly become Pope.

Then there were his three old maiden great-aunts, who had all desired to be nuns, but who apparently had not had the courage to do so when it came to the point. They dwelt together in a remote Burgundian chateau, and they each spent an hour daily in their chapel praying that their dear nephew Paul might be rescued from the evils of play.

And as Paul de Virieu told Sylvia Bailey of all these curious old-world folk of his, Sylvia wondered more and more why he led the kind of existence he was leading now.

* * * * *

For the first time since Sylvia had come to Lacville, neither she nor Count Paul spent any part of that afternoon at the Casino. They were both at that happy stage of—shall we say friendship?—when a man and a woman cannot see too much of one another; when time is as if it were not; when nothing said or done can be wrong in the other's sight; when Love is still a soft and an invisible presence, with naught about him of the exacting tyrant he will so soon become.

Count Paul postponed his departure for Paris till after dinner, and not till she went up to dress did Sylvia sit down to write her answer to the Duchesse d'Eglemont.

For a long while she held her pen in her hand. How was she to address Paul de Virieu's sister? Must she call her "Dear Madame"? Should she call her "Dear Duchesse"? It was really an unimportant matter, but it appeared very important to Sylvia Bailey. She was exceedingly anxious not to commit any social solecism.

And then, while she was still hesitating, still sitting with the pen poised in her hand, there came a knock at the door.

The maid handed her a note; it was from Count Paul, the first letter he had ever written to her.

"Madame,"—so ran the note—"it occurs to me that you might like to answer my sister in French, and so I venture to send you the sort of letter that you might perhaps care to write. Each country has its own usages in these matters—that must be my excuse for my apparent impertinence."

And then there followed a prettily-turned little epistle which Sylvia copied, feeling perhaps a deeper gratitude than a far greater service would have won him from her.



CHAPTER XII

A couple of hours later Sylvia and Count Paul parted at the door of the Casino. He held her hand longer than was usual with him when bidding her good-night; then, dropping it, he lifted his hat and hurried off towards the station.

Sylvia stood in the dusk and looked after him till a turn in the short road hid his hurrying figure from her sight.

She felt very much moved, touched to the core of her heart. She knew just as well as if he had told her why the Comte de Virieu had given up his evening's play to-night. He had left Lacville, and arranged to meet her in Paris the next day, in order that their names might not be coupled—as would have certainly been the case if they had travelled together into Paris the next morning—by M. Polperro and the good-natured, but rather vulgar Wachners.

As she turned and walked slowly through the Casino, moving as in a dream, Sylvia suddenly felt herself smartly tapped on the shoulder.

She turned round quickly—then she smiled. It was Madame Wachner.

"Why 'ave you not come before?" her friend exclaimed. "Madame Wolsky is making such a sensation! Come quick—quick!" and she hurried the unresisting Sylvia towards the Club rooms. "I come downstairs to see if I could find you," went on Madame Wachner breathlessly.

What could be happening? Sylvia felt the other's excitement to be contagious. As she entered the gambling room she saw that a large crowd was gathered round the centre Baccarat table.

"A party of young men out from Paris," explained Madame Wachner in a low tone, "are throwing about their money. It might have been terrible. But no, it is a great piece of good fortune for Madame Wolsky!"

And still Sylvia did not understand.

They walked together up to the table, and then, with amazement and a curious feeling of fear clutching at her heart, Sylvia Bailey saw that Anna Wolsky was holding the Bank.

It was the first time she had ever seen a lady in the Banker's seat.

A thick bundle of notes, on which were arranged symmetrical piles of gold lay in front of Madame Wolsky, and as was always the case when she was really excited, Anna's face had become very pale, and her eyes glistened feverishly.

The play, too, was much higher than usual. This was owing to the fact that at one end of the table there stood a little group of five young men in evening dress. They talked and laughed as they flung their money on the green cloth, and seemed to enjoy the fact that they were the centre of attraction.

"One of them," whispered Madame Wachner eagerly, "had already lost eight thousand francs when I went downstairs to look for you! See, they are still losing. Our friend has the devil's own luck to-night! I have forbidden L'Ami Fritz to play at all. Nothing can stand against her. She sweeps the money up every time. If Fritz likes, he can go downstairs to the lower room and play."

But before doing so L'Ami Fritz lingered awhile, watching Madame Wolsky's wonderful run of luck with an expression of painful envy and greed on his wolfish countenance.

Sylvia went round to a point where she could watch Anna's face. To a stranger Madame Wolsky might have appeared almost indifferent; but there had come two spots of red on her cheeks, and the hand with which she raked up the money trembled.

The words rang out, "Faites vos jeux, Messieurs, Mesdames." Then, "Le jeu est fait! Rien ne va plus!"

The luck suddenly turned against Anna. She looked up, and found Sylvia's eyes fixed on her. She made a slight motion, as if she wished her friend to go away.

Sylvia slipped back, and walked quietly round the table. Then she stood behind Anna, and once more the luck came back, and the lady banker's pile of notes and gold grew higher and higher....

"This is the first time a woman has held the Bank this month," Sylvia heard someone say.

And then there came an answer, "Yes, and it is by far the best Bank we have had this month—in fact, it's the best play we've had this season!"

At last Anna pushed away her chair and got up.

One of the young men who had lost a good deal of money came up to her and said smilingly.

"I hope, Madame, you are not going away. I propose now to take the Bank; surely, you will allow me to have my revenge?"

Anna Wolsky laughed.

"Certainly!" she answered. "I propose to go on playing for some time longer."

He took the Banker's seat, and the crowd dispersed to the other tables. L'Ami Fritz slipped away downstairs, but his wife stayed on in the Club by Sylvia's side.

Soon the table was as much surrounded as before, for Anna was again winning. She had won as banker, now she won as simple player, and all those about her began to "follow her luck" with excellent results to themselves.

The scene reminded Sylvia of that first evening at the Casino. It was only three weeks ago, and yet how full, how crowded the time had been!

Somehow to-night she did not feel inclined to play. To her surprise and amusement she saw Madame Wachner actually risk a twenty-franc piece. A moment later the stake was doubled, and soon the good lady had won nine gold pieces. Her face flushed with joy like a happy child's.

"Oh, why is not Fritz here?" she exclaimed. "How sorry I am I sent him downstairs! But, never mind, his old wife is making some money for once!"

At last the Banker rose from the table. He was pretty well cleared out. Smiling and bowing to Anna, he said, "Well, Madame, I congratulate you! You must have a very powerful mascot."

Anna shook her head gaily.

"It is pleasant to win from a millionaire," she whispered to Sylvia, "for one knows it does not hurt him! That young man has a share in the profit on every piece of sugar sold in France, and you know how fond the French are of sweet things!"

She turned from the table, followed by Sylvia and Madame Wachner.

"What will you do with all your money?" asked Madame Wachner anxiously.

"I told one of the ushers to have it all turned into notes for me," she answered indifferently. "As to what I shall do with it!—well, I suppose I shall have to go into Paris and bank some of it in a day or two. I shan't play to-morrow. I shall take a rest—I deserve a rest!" She looked extraordinarily excited and happy.

"Shall we drop you at the Pension Malfait?" said Madame Wachner amiably. "It is right on our way home, you know. I, too, have made money—" she chuckled joyously.

Madame Wachner left the two friends standing in the hall while she went to look for her husband in the public gambling room, and as they stood there Sylvia became conscious that they were being stared at with a great deal of interest and curiosity. The news of Anna Wolsky's extraordinary good luck had evidently spread.

"I wish I had come in a little earlier," said Sylvia presently. "I've never seen you take the Bank before. Surely this is the first time you have done so?"

"Yes, this is the first time I have ever been tempted to take the Bank at Lacville. But somehow I suddenly felt as if I should be lucky to-night. You see, I've made a good deal of money the last day or two, and Madame Wachner persuaded me to try my luck."

"I wish you had told me you were thinking of taking the Bank."

"I would have told you," said Anna quietly, "if I had seen you to-day. But I have been seeing very little of you lately, Sylvia. Why, you are more with Madame Wachner than with me!"

She did not speak unkindly, but Sylvia felt a pang of remorse. She had indeed seen very little of Anna Wolsky during the last few days, but that was not because she had been with Madame Wachner.

"I will come and see you for a little while to-night," she said impetuously, "for I am going to spend to-morrow in Paris—with a friend who is there just now—"

She hurried out the half-truth with a curious feeling of guilt.

"Yes, do come!" cried Anna eagerly. "You can stay with me while the carriage takes the Wachners on home, and then it can call for you on the way back. I should not like you to walk to the Villa du Lac alone at this time of night."

"Ah, but I'm not like you; I haven't won piles of money!" said Sylvia, smiling.

"No, but that makes very little difference in a place like this—"

And then Monsieur and Madame Wachner joined them. L'Ami Fritz looked quite moved out of himself. He seized Anna by the hand. "I congratulate you!" he said heartily. "What a splendid thing to go on winning like that. I wish I had been there, for I might have followed your luck!"

They all four walked out of the Casino. It was a very dark night.

"And what will you do with all that money?" Monsieur Wachner solicitously inquired. "It is a great sum to carry about, is it not?"

"It is far better to carry about one's money than to trust it to anyone but to a well-managed bank," exclaimed his wife, before Anna could answer the question. "As for the hotel-keepers, I would not trust them with one penny. What happened to a friend of ours, eh, Fritz, tell them that?"

They were now packed into an open carriage, and driving towards the Pension Malfait.

"I don't know what you are talking about," said her husband, crossly.

"Yes, you do! That friend of ours who was boarding in one of those small houses in the Condamine at Monte Carlo, and who one day won a lot of money. He gave his winnings to his hotel-keeper to keep for the night. Next day the man said his safe had been broken open by a foreign waiter who had disappeared. Our friend had no redress—none at all! Malfait may be a very good sort of man, but I would not give him your money—" she turned to Anna.

"No, of course not," said Madame Wolsky. "I should never think of entrusting a really large sum of money to a man of whom I know nothing. It is, as you say, very much better to keep one's money on one's person. It's the plan I've always followed. Then, if it is stolen, or if one loses it, one has only oneself to blame."

"It is very exciting taking the Bank," she added, after a pause. "I think I shall take the Bank again next time I play."

The short drive was soon over, and as Anna and Sylvia were going into the Pension Malfait, Madame Wachner called out, "Will you both come to supper to-morrow?"

Sylvia shook her head.

"I am going into Paris for the day," she said, "and I shall feel tired when I get back. But many thanks, all the same."

"Then you must come"—Madame Wachner addressed Anna Wolsky. "We also will have a rest from the Casino."

"Very well! I accept gratefully your kind invitation."

"Come early. Come at six, and we can 'ave a cosy chat first."

"Yes, I will!"

After giving directions that they were to be told when the carriage had come back from the Chalet des Muguets, the two friends went up to Anna Wolsky's bed-room.

Sylvia sat down by the open window.

"You need not light a candle, Anna," she said. "It's so pleasant just now, so quiet and cool, and the light would only attract those horrid midges. They seem to me the only things I have to find fault with in Lacville!"

Anna Wolsky came and sat down in the darkness close to the younger woman.

"Sylvia," she said, "dear little Sylvia! Sometimes I feel uneasy at having brought you to Lacville." She spoke in a thoughtful and very serious tone.

"Indeed, you need feel nothing of the kind."

Sylvia Bailey put out her hand and took the other woman's hand in her own. She knew in her heart what Anna meant, but she wilfully pretended to misunderstand her.

"You need never think that I run the slightest risk of becoming a gambler," she went on, a little breathlessly. "I was looking at my account-book to-day, and I find that since I have been here I have lost seventy francs. Two days ago I had won a hundred and ten francs. So you see it is not a very serious matter, is it? Just think of all the fun I've had! It's well worth the money I've lost. Besides, I shall probably win it all back—"

"I was not thinking of the money," said Anna Wolsky slowly.

Sylvia made a restless movement, and took her hand out of Anna's affectionate clasp.

"I'm afraid that you are becoming very fond of the Comte de Virieu," went on Anna, in a low voice but very deliberately. "You must forgive me, Sylvia, but I am older than you are. Have you thought of the consequences of this friendship of yours? I confess that at the beginning I credited that man with the worst of motives, but now I feel afraid that he is in love—in fact I feel sure that he is madly in love with you. Do you know that he never takes his eyes off you in the Club? Often he forgets to pick up his winnings...."

Sylvia's heart began to beat. She wondered if Anna was indeed telling the truth. She almost bent forward and kissed her friend in her gratitude—but all she said was, and that defiantly,

"You can believe me when I say that he has never said a word of love to me. He has never even flirted with me. I give you my word that that is so!"

"Ah, but it is just that fact that makes me believe that he cares. Flirtation is an English art, not a French art, my dear Sylvia. A Frenchman either loves—and when he loves he adores on his knees—or else he has no use, no use at all, for what English people mean by flirtation—the make-believe of love! I should feel much more at ease if the Count had insulted you—"

"Anna!"

"Yes, indeed! I am quite serious. I fear he loves you."

And as Sylvia gave a long, involuntary, happy sigh, Anna went on: "Of course, I do not regard him with trust or with liking. How could I? On the other hand, I do not go as far as the Wachners; they, it is quite clear, evidently know something very much to the Count's discredit."

"I don't believe they do!" cried Sylvia, hotly. "It is mere prejudice on their part! He does not like them, and they know it. He thinks them vulgar sort of people, and he suspects that Monsieur Wachner is German—that is quite enough for him."

"But, after all, it does not really matter what the Wachners think of the Comte de Virieu, or what he thinks of them," said Anna. "What matters is what you think of him, and what he thinks of you."

Sylvia was glad that the darkness hid her deep, burning blushes from Anna Wolsky.

"You do not realise," said the Polish lady, gravely, "what your life would be if you were married to a man whose only interest in life is play. Mind you, I do not say that a gambler does not make a kind husband. We have an example"—she smiled a little—"in this Monsieur Wachner. He is certainly very fond of his wife, and she is very fond of him. But would you like your husband always to prefer his vice to you?"

Sylvia made no answer.

"But why am I talking like that?" Anna Wolsky started up suddenly. "It is absurd of me to think it possible that you would dream of marrying the Comte de Virieu! No, no, my dear child, this poor Frenchman is one of those men who, even if personally charming, no wise woman would think of marrying. He is absolutely ruined. I do not suppose he has a penny left of his own in the world. He would not have the money to buy you a wedding ring. You would have to provide even that! It would be madness—absolute madness!"

"I do not think," said Sylvia, in a low tone, "that there is the slightest likelihood of my ever marrying the Comte de Virieu. You forget that I have known him only a short time, and that he has never said a word of love to me. As you say, all he cares about is play."

"Surely you must be as well aware as I am that lately he has played a great deal less," said Anna, "and the time that he would have spent at the Club—well, you and I know very well where he has spent the time, Sylvia. He has spent it with you."

"And isn't that a good thing?" asked Sylvia, eagerly. "Isn't it far better that he should spend his time talking to me about ordinary things than in the Casino? Let me assure you again, and most solemnly, Anna, that he never makes love to me—"

"Of course it is a good thing for him that he plays less"—Anna spoke impatiently—"but is it best for you? That is what I ask myself. You have not looked well lately, Sylvia. You have looked very sad sometimes. Oh, do not be afraid, you are quite as pretty as ever you were!"

The tears were running down Sylvia's face. She felt that she ought to be very angry with her friend for speaking thus plainly to her, and yet she could not be angry. Anna spoke so tenderly, so kindly, so delicately.

"Shall we go away from Lacville?" asked Madame Wolsky, suddenly. "There are a hundred places where you and I could go together. Let us leave Lacville! I am sure you feel just as I do—I am sure you realise that the Comte de Virieu would never make you happy."

Sylvia shook her head.

"I do not want to go away," she whispered.

And then Madame Wolsky uttered a short exclamation.

"Ah!" she cried, "I understand. He is the friend you are to meet to-morrow—that is why you are going into Paris!"

Sylvia remained silent.

"I understand it all now," went on Anna. "That is the reason why he was not there to-night. He has gone into Paris so as not to compromise you at Lacville. That is the sort of gallantry that means so little! As if Lacville matters—but tell me this, Sylvia? Has he ever spoken to you as if he desired to introduce his family to you? That is the test, remember—that is the test of a Frenchman's regard for a woman."

There came a knock at the door. "The carriage for Madame has arrived."

They went downstairs, Sylvia having left her friend's last question unanswered.

Madame Wolsky, though generally so undemonstrative, took Sylvia in her arms and kissed her.

"God bless you, my dear little friend!" she whispered, "and forgive all I have said to you to-night! Still, think the matter over. I have lived a great deal of my life in this country. I am almost a Frenchwoman. It is no use marrying a Frenchman unless his family marry you too—and I understand that the Comte de Virieu's family have cast him off."

Sylvia got into the carriage and looked back, her eyes blinded with tears.

Anna Wolsky stood in the doorway of the Pension, her tall, thin figure in sharp silhouette against the lighted hall.

"We will meet the day after to-morrow, is that not so?" she cried out.

And Sylvia nodded. As she drove away, she told herself that whatever happened she would always remain faithful to her affection for Anna Wolsky.



CHAPTER XIII

The next morning found Paul de Virieu walking up and down platform No. 9 of the Gare du Nord, waiting for Mrs. Bailey's train, which was due to arrive from Lacville at eleven o'clock.

Though he looked as if he hadn't a care in the world save the pleasant care of enjoying the present and looking forward to the future, life was very grey just now to the young Frenchman.

To a Parisian, Paris in hot weather is a depressing place, even under the pleasantest of circumstances, and the Count felt an alien and an outcast in the city where he had spent much of his careless and happy youth.

His sister, the Duchesse d'Eglemont, who had journeyed all the way from Brittany to see him for two or three days, had received him with that touch of painful affection which the kindly and the prosperous so often bestow on those whom they feel to be at once beloved and prodigal.

When with his dear Marie-Anne, Paul de Virieu always felt as though he had been condemned to be guillotined, and as if she were doing everything to make his last days on earth as pleasant as possible.

When he had proposed that his sister should ask his new friend, this English widow he had met at Lacville, to luncheon—nay more, when he had asked Marie-Anne to lend Mrs. Bailey a riding habit, and to arrange that one of the Duc's horses should come over every morning in order that he and Mrs. Bailey might ride together—the kind Duchesse had at once assented, almost too eagerly, to his requests. And she had asked her brother no tiresome, indiscreet questions as to his relations with the young Englishwoman,—whether, for instance, he was really fond of Sylvia, whether it was conceivably possible that he was thinking of marrying her?

And, truth to tell, Paul de Virieu would have found it very difficult to give an honest answer to the question. He was in a strange, debatable state of mind about Sylvia—beautiful, simple, unsophisticated Sylvia Bailey.

He told himself, and that very often, that the young Englishwoman, with her absurd, touching lack of worldly knowledge, had no business to be living in such a place as Lacville, wasting her money at the Baccarat tables, and knowing such queer people as were—well, yes, even Anna Wolsky was queer—Madame Wolsky and the Wachners!

But if Sylvia Bailey had no business to be at Lacville, he, Paul de Virieu, had no business to be flirting with her as he was doing—for though Sylvia was honestly unaware of the fact, the Count was carrying on what he well knew to be a very agreeable flirtation with the lady he called in his own mind his "petite amie Anglaise," and very much he was enjoying the experience—when his conscience allowed him to enjoy it.

Till the last few weeks Paul de Virieu had supposed himself to have come to that time of life when a man can no longer feel the delicious tremors of love. Now no man, least of all a Frenchman, likes to feel that this time has come, and it was inexpressibly delightful to him to know that he had been mistaken—that he could still enjoy the most absorbing and enchanting sensation vouchsafed to poor humanity.

He was in love! In love for the first time for many years, and with a sweet, happy-natured woman, who became more intimately dear to him every moment that went by. Indeed, he knew that the real reason why he had felt so depressed last night and even this morning was because he was parted from Sylvia.

But where was it all to end? True, he had told Mrs. Bailey the truth about himself very early in their acquaintance—in fact, amazingly soon, and he had been prompted to do so by a feeling which defied analysis.

But still, did Sylvia, even now, realise what that truth was? Did she in the least understand what it meant for a man to be bound and gagged, as he was bound and gagged, lashed to the chariot of the Goddess of Chance? No, of course she did not realise it—how could such a woman as was Sylvia Bailey possibly do so?

Walking up and down the long platform, chewing the cud of bitter reflection, Paul de Virieu told himself that the part of an honest man, to say nothing of that of an honourable gentleman, would be to leave Lacville before matters had gone any further between them. Yes, that was what he was bound to do by every code of honour.

And then, just as he had taken the heroic resolution of going back to Brittany with his sister, as Marie-Anne had begged him to do only that morning, the Lacville train steamed into the station—and with the sight of Sylvia's lovely face all his good resolutions flew to the winds.

She stepped down from the high railway carriage, and looked round her with a rather bewildered air, for a crowd of people were surging round her, and she had not yet caught sight of Count Paul.

Wearing a pinkish mauve cotton gown and a large black tulle hat, Sylvia looked enchantingly pretty. And if the Count's critical French eyes objected to the alliance of a cotton gown and tulle hat, and to the wearing of a string of large pearls in the morning, he was in the state of mind when a man of fastidious taste forgives even a lack of taste in the woman to whom he is acting as guide, philosopher, and friend.

He told himself that Sylvia Bailey could not be left alone in a place like Lacville, and that it was his positive duty to stay on there and look after her....

Suddenly their eyes met. Sylvia blushed—Heavens! how adorable she looked when there came that vivid rose-red blush over her rounded cheeks. And she was adorable in a simple, unsophisticated way, which appealed to Paul de Virieu as nothing in woman had ever appealed to him before.

He could not help enjoying the thought of how surprised his sister would be. Marie-Anne had doubtless pictured Mrs. Bailey as belonging to the rather hard, self-assertive type of young Englishwoman of whom Paris sees a great deal. But Sylvia looked girlishly simple, timid, and confiding.

As he greeted her, Paul de Virieu's manner was serious, almost solemn. But none the less, while they walked side by side in a quiet, leisurely fashion through the great grey station, Sylvia felt as if she had indeed passed through the shining portals of fairyland.

In the covered courtyard stood the Duchesse's carriage. Count Paul motioned the footman aside and stood bareheaded while Sylvia took her place in the victoria. As he sat down by her side he suddenly observed, "My brother-in-law does not like motor-cars," and Sylvia felt secret, shame-faced gratitude to the Duc d'Eglemont, for, thanks to this prejudice of his, the moments now being spent by her alone with Count Paul were trebled.

As the carriage drove with swift, gondola-like motion through the hot streets, Sylvia felt more than ever as if she were in a new, enchanted country—that dear country called Romance, and, as if to prolong the illusion, the Count began to talk what seemed to her the language of that country.

"Every Frenchman," he exclaimed, abruptly, "is in love with love, and when you hear—as you may do sometimes, Madame—that a Frenchman is rarely in love with his own wife, pray answer that this is quite untrue! For it often happens that in his wife a Frenchman discovers the love he has sought elsewhere in vain."

He looked straight before him as he added: "As for marriage—well, marriage is in my country regarded as a very serious matter indeed! No Frenchman goes into marriage as light-heartedly as does the average Englishman, and as have done, for instance, so many of my own English schoolfellows. No, to a Frenchman his marriage means everything or nothing, and if he loved a woman it would appear to him a dastardly action to ask her to share his life if he did not believe that life to be what would be likely to satisfy her, to bring her honour and happiness."

Sylvia turned to him, and, rather marvelling at her own temerity, she asked a fateful question:

"But would love ever make the kind of Frenchman you describe give up a way of life that was likely to make his wife unhappy?"

Count Paul looked straight into the blue eyes which told him so much more than their owner knew they told.

"Yes! He might easily give up that life for the sake of a beloved woman. But would he remain always faithful in his renunciation? That is the question which none, least of all himself, can answer!"

The victoria was now crossing one of the bridges which are, perhaps, the noblest possession of outdoor Paris.

Count Paul changed the subject. He had seen with mingled pain and joy how much his last honest words had troubled her.

"My brother-in-law has never cared to move west, as so many of his friends have done," he observed. "He prefers to remain in the old family house that was built by his great-grandfather before the French Revolution."

Soon they were bowling along a quiet, sunny street, edged with high walls overhung with trees. The street bore the name of Babylon.

And indeed there was something almost Babylonian, something very splendid in the vast courtyard which formed the centre of what appeared, to Sylvia's fascinated eyes, a grey stone palace. The long rows of high, narrow windows which now encompassed her were all closed, but with the clatter of the horses' hoofs on the huge paving-stones the great house stirred into life.

The carriage drew up. Count Paul jumped out and gave Sylvia his hand. Huge iron doors, that looked as if they could shut out an invading army, were flung open, and after a moment's pause, Paul de Virieu led Sylvia Bailey across the threshold of the historic Hotel d'Eglemont.

She had never seen, she had never imagined, such pomp, such solemn state, as that which greeted her, and there came across her a childish wish that Anna Wolsky and the Wachners could witness the scene—the hall hung with tapestries given to an ancestor of the Duc d'Eglemont by Louis the Fourteenth, the line of powdered footmen, and the solemn major-domo who ushered them up the wide staircase, at the head of which there stood a slender, white-clad young woman, with a sweet, eager face.

This was the first time Sylvia Bailey had met a duchess, and she was perhaps a little surprised to see how very unpretentious a duchess could be!

Marie-Anne d'Eglemont spoke in a low, almost timid voice, her English being far less good than her brother's, and yet how truly kind and highly-bred she at once showed herself, putting Sylvia at her ease, and appearing to think there was nothing at all unusual in Mrs. Bailey's friendship with Paul de Virieu!

And then, after they had lunched in an octagon room of which each panel had been painted by Van Loo, and which opened on a garden where the green glades and high trees looked as if they must be far from a great city, there suddenly glided in a tiny old lady, dressed in a sweeping black gown and little frilled lace cap.

Count Paul bowing low before her, kissed her waxen-looking right hand.

"My dear godmother, let me present to you Mrs. Bailey," and Sylvia felt herself being closely, rather pitilessly, inspected by shrewd though not unkindly eyes—eyes sunken, dimmed by age, yet seeing more, perhaps, than younger eyes would have seen.

The old Marquise beckoned to Count Paul, and together they slowly walked through into the garden and paced away down a shaded alley. For the first time Sylvia and Marie-Anne d'Eglemont were alone together.

"I wish to thank you for your kindness to my poor Paul," the Duchesse spoke in a low, hesitating voice. "You have so much influence over him, Madame."

Sylvia shook her head.

"Ah! But yes, you have!" She looked imploringly at Sylvia. "You know what I mean? You know what I would ask you to do? My husband could give Paul work in the country, work he would love, for he adores horses, if only he could be rescued from this terrible infatuation, this passion for play."

She stopped abruptly, for the Count and his little, fairy-like godmother had turned round, and were now coming towards them.

Sylvia rose instinctively to her feet, for the tiny Marquise was very imposing.

"Sit down, Madame," she said imperiously, and Sylvia meekly obeyed.

The old lady fixed her eyes with an appraising gaze on her godson's English friend.

"Permit me to embrace you," she exclaimed suddenly. "You are a very pretty creature! And though no doubt young lips often tell you this, the compliments of the old have the merit of being quite sincere!"

She bent down, and Sylvia, to her confusion and surprise, felt her cheeks lightly kissed by the withered lips of Paul de Virieu's godmother.

"Madame Bailey's rouge is natural; it does not come off!" the old lady exclaimed, and a smile crept over her parchment-coloured face. "Not but what a great deal of nonsense is talked about the usage of rouge, my dear children! There is no harm in supplementing the niggardly gifts of nature. You, for instance, Marie-Anne, would look all the better for a little rouge!" She spoke in a high, quavering voice.

The Duchesse smiled. Her brother had always been the old Marquise's favourite.

"But I should feel so ashamed if it came off," she said lightly; "if, for instance, I felt one of my cheeks growing pale while the other remained bright red?"

"That would never happen if you used what I have often told you is the only rouge a lady should use, that is, the sap of the geranium blossom—that gives an absolutely natural tint to the skin, and my own dear mother always used it. You remember how Louis XVIII. complimented her on her beautiful complexion at the first Royal ball held after the Restoration? Well, the Sovereign's gracious words were entirely owing to the geranium blossom!"



CHAPTER XIV

The day after her memorable expedition to Paris opened pleasantly for Sylvia Bailey, though it was odd how dull and lifeless the Villa du Lac seemed to be without Count Paul.

But he would be back to-morrow, and in the morning of the next day they were to begin riding together.

Again and again she went over in retrospect every moment of the two hours she had spent in that great house in the Faubourg St. Germain.

How kind these two ladies had been to her, Paul's gentle sister and his stately little fairy-like godmother! But the Duchesse's manner had been very formal, almost solemn; and as for the other—Sylvia could still feel the dim, yet terribly searching, eyes fixed on her face, and she wondered nervously what sort of effect she had produced on the old Marquise.

Meanwhile, she felt that now was the time to see something of Anna Wolsky. The long afternoon and evening stretching before her seemed likely to be very dull, and so she wrote a little note and asked Anna if she would care for a long expedition in the Forest of Montmorency. It was the sort of thing Anna always said bored her, but as she was not going to the Casino a drive would surely be better than doing nothing.

* * * * *

And now Sylvia, sitting idly by her bed-room window, was awaiting Anna's answer to her note. She had sent it, just before she went down to luncheon, by a commissionaire, to the Pension Malfait, and the answer ought to have come ere now.

After their drive she and Anna might call on the Wachners and offer to take them to the Casino; and with the thought of the Wachners there came over Sylvia a regret that the Comte de Virieu was so fastidious. He seemed to detest the Wachners! When he met them at the Casino, the most he would do was to incline his head coldly towards them. Who could wonder that Madame Wachner spoke so disagreeably of him?

Sylvia Bailey's nature was very loyal, and now she reminded herself that this couple, for whom Count Paul seemed to have an instinctive dislike, were good-natured and kindly. She must ever remember gratefully how helpful Madame Wachner had been during the first few days she and Anna had been at Lacville, in showing them the little ways about the place, and in explaining to them all sorts of things about the Casino.

And how kindly the Wachners had pressed Anna yesterday to have supper with them during Sylvia's absence in Paris!

* * * * *

There came a knock at the door, and Sylvia jumped up from her chair. No doubt this was Anna herself in response to the note.

"Come in," she cried out, in English.

There was a pause, and another knock. Then it was not Anna?

"Entrez!"

The commissionaire by whom Sylvia had sent her note to Madame Wolsky walked into the room. To her great surprise he handed her back her own letter to her friend. The envelope had been opened, and together with her letter was a sheet of common notepaper, across which was scrawled, in pencil, the words, "Madame Wolsky est partie."

Sylvia looked up. "Partie?" The word puzzled her. Surely it should have been "Sortie." Perhaps Anna had gone to Paris for the day to bank her large winnings. "Then the lady was out?" she said to the man.

"The lady has left the Pension Malfait," he said, briefly. "She has gone away."

"There must be some mistake!" Sylvia exclaimed, in French. "My friend would never have left Lacville without telling me."

The commissionaire went on: "But I have brought back a motor-cab as Madame directed me to do."

She paid him, and went downstairs hurriedly. What an extraordinary mistake! It was out of the question that Anna should have left Lacville without telling her; but as the motor was there she might as well drive to the Pension Malfait and find out the meaning of the curt message, and also why her own letter to Anna had been opened.

If Anna had gone into Paris for the day, the only thing to do was to go for a drive alone. The prospect was not exhilarating, but it would be better than staying indoors, or even in the garden by herself, all afternoon.

Sylvia felt rather troubled and uncomfortable as she got into the open motor. Somehow she had counted on seeing Anna to-day. She remembered her friend's last words to her. They had been kind, tender words, and though Anna did not approve of Sylvia's friendship for Paul de Virieu, she had spoken in a very understanding, sympathetic way, almost as a loving mother might have spoken.

It was odd of Anna not to have left word she was going to Paris for the day. In any case, the Wachners would know when Anna would be back. It was with them that she had had supper yesterday evening—.

While these thoughts were passing disconnectedly through Sylvia's mind, she suddenly saw the substantial figure of Madame Wachner walking slowly along the sanded path by the side of the road.

"Madame Wachner! Madame Wachner!" she cried out eagerly, and the car drew up with a jerk.

That citizeness of the world, as she had called herself, stepped down from the kerb. She looked hot and tired. It was a most unusual time for Madame Wachner to be out walking, and by herself, in Lacville.

But Sylvia was thinking too much about Anna Wolsky to trouble about anything else.

"Have you heard that Anna Wolsky is away for the day?" she exclaimed. "I have received such a mysterious message from the Pension Malfait! Do come with me there and find out where she has gone and when she is coming back. Did she say anything about going into Paris when she had supper with you last night?"

With a smile and many voluble thanks Madame Wachner climbed up into the open car, and sat back with a sigh of satisfaction.

She was very stout, though still so vigorous, and her shrewd, determined face now turned smilingly to the pretty, anxious-eyed Englishwoman. But she waited a few moments before answering Sylvia's eager questions. Then,

"I cannot tell you," she said slowly and in French, "what has happened to Madame Wolsky—"

"What has happened to her!" cried Sylvia. "What do you mean, Madame Wachner?"

"Oh, of course, nothing 'as 'appened." Madame Wachner dropped soothingly into English. "All I mean is that Madame Wolsky did not come to us yesterday evening. We stayed in on purpose, but, as English people say so funnily, she never turn up!"

"But she was coming to tea as well as to supper!"

"Yes, we waited for 'er a long time, and I 'ad got such a beautiful little supper! But, alas! she did not come—no, not at all."

"How odd of her! Perhaps she got a telegram which contained bad news—"

"Yes," said Madame Wachner eagerly, "no doubt. For this morning when I go to the Pension Malfait, I 'ear that she 'as gone away! It was for that I was 'urrying to the Villa du Lac to see if you knew anything, dear friend."

"Gone away?" repeated Sylvia, bewildered. "But it is inconceivable that Anna could have left Lacville without telling me—or, for the matter of that, without telling you, too—"

"She 'as taken what you in England call 'French leave,'" said Madame Wachner drily. "It was not very considerate of 'er. She might 'ave sent us word last night. We would not then 'ave waited to 'ave our nice supper."

"She can't have gone away without telling me," repeated Sylvia. She was staring straight into her companion's red face: Madame Wachner still looked very hot and breathless. "I am sure she would never have done such a thing. Why should she?"

The older woman shrugged her shoulders.

"I expect she will come back soon," she said consolingly. "She 'as left her luggage at the Pension Malfait, and that, after all, does not look as if she 'as gone for evare!"

"Left her luggage?" cried Sylvia, in a relieved tone. "Why, then, of course, she is coming back! I expect she has gone to Paris for a night in order to see friends passing through. How could the Pension Malfait people think she had gone—I mean for good? You know, Madame Wachner"—she lowered her voice, for she did not wish the driver to hear what she was about to say—"you know that Anna won a very large sum of money two nights ago."

Sylvia Bailey was aware that people had been robbed and roughly handled, even in idyllic Lacville, when leaving the Casino after an especial stroke of luck at the tables.

"I do hope nothing has happened to her!"

"'Appened to 'er? What do you mean?" Madame Wachner spoke quite crossly. "Who ever thought of such a thing!" And she fanned herself vigorously with a paper fan she held in her left hand. "As to her winnings—yes, she won a lot of money the night she took the bank. But, remember that she 'as 'ad plenty of time yesterday to lose it all again—ah, yes!"

"But she meant to give up play till Monday," said Sylvia, eagerly. "I feel sure she never went inside the Casino yesterday."

"Oh, but she did. My 'usband saw her there."

"At what time?" asked Sylvia, eagerly.

"Let me see—"

"Of course, it must have been early, as you were back waiting for her late in the afternoon."

"Yes, it must have been early. And once in the Casino!—well, dear friend, you know as well as I do that with Madame Wolsky the money flies! Still, let us suppose she did not lose 'er money yesterday. In that case surely Madame Wolsky would 'ave done well to leave Lacville with 'er gains in 'er pocket-book."

Madame Wachner was leaning back in the car, a ruminating smile on her broad, good-tempered face.

She was thoroughly enjoying the rush through the air. It was very hot, and she disliked walking. Her morose husband very seldom allowed her to take a cab. He generally forced her to walk to the Casino and back.

Something of a philosopher was Madame Wachner, always accepting with eager, out-stretched hands that with which the gods provided her.

And all at once pretty Sylvia Bailey, though unobservant as happy, prosperous youth so often is, conceived the impression that her companion did not at all wish to discuss Anna's sudden departure. Madame Wachner had evidently been very much annoyed by Anna's lack of civility, and surely the least Anna could have done would have been to send a message saying that it was impossible for her to come to supper at the Chalet des Muguets!

"I am quite sure Anna did not mean to be rude, dear Madame Wachner," said Sylvia, earnestly. "You know she may have sent you a letter or a message which miscarried. They are rather careless people at the Pension Malfait."

"Yes, of course, that is always possible," said the other rather coldly.

And then, as they came within sight of the Pension Malfait, Madame Wachner suddenly placed her large, powerful, bare hand on Sylvia's small gloved one.

"Look 'ere, my dear," she said, familiarly, "do not worry about Madame Wolsky. Believe me, she is not worth it."

Sylvia looked at her amazed, and then Madame Wachner broke into French: "She thought of nothing but play—that is the truth! Play, play, play! Other times she was half asleep!"

She waited a moment, then slowly, and in English, she said, "I believe in my 'eart that she 'as gone off to Aix. The play 'ere was not big enough for 'er. And remember that you 'ave good friends still left in Lacville. I do not only speak of me and of my 'usband, but also of another one."

She laughed, if good-naturedly, then a little maliciously.

But Sylvia gave no answering smile. She told herself that Madame Wachner, though kindly, was certainly rather vulgar, not to say coarse. And her words about Madame Wolsky were really unkind. Anna was not such a gambler as was Fritz Wachner.

They were now at the gate of the boarding house.

"We will, at any rate, go in and find out when Anna left, and if she said where she was going," said Sylvia.

"If you do not mind," observed Madame Wachner, "I will remain out here, in the car. They have already seen me this morning at the Pension Malfait. They must be quite tired of seeing me."

Sylvia felt rather disappointed. She would have liked the support of Madame Wachner's cheerful presence when making her inquiries, for she was aware that the proprietors of Anna's pension—M. and Madame Malfait—had been very much annoyed that she, Sylvia, had not joined her friend there.

Madame Malfait was sitting in her usual place—that is, in a little glass cage in the hall—and when she saw Mrs. Bailey coming towards her, a look of impatience, almost of dislike, crossed her thin, shrewd face.

"Bon jour, Madame!" she said curtly. "I suppose you also have come to ask me about Madame Wolsky? But I think you must have heard all there is to hear from the lady whom I see out there in the car. I can tell you nothing more than I have already told her. Madame Wolsky has treated us with great want of consideration. She did not come home last evening. Poor Malfait waited up all night, wondering what could be the matter. And then, this morning, we found a letter in her room saying she had gone away!"

"A letter in her room?" exclaimed Sylvia. "Madame Wachner did not tell me that my friend had left a letter—"

But Madame Malfait went on angrily:

"Madame Wolsky need not have troubled to write! A word of explanation would have been better, and would have prevented my husband sitting up till five o'clock this morning. We quite feared something must have happened to her. But we have a great dislike to any affair with the police, and so we thought we would wait before telling them of her disappearance, and it is indeed fortunate that we did so!"

"Will you kindly show me the letter she left for you?" said Sylvia.

Without speaking, Madame Malfait bent down over her table, and then held out a piece of notepaper on which were written the words:

Madame Malfait,—

Being unexpectedly obliged to leave Lacville, I enclose herewith 200 francs. Please pay what is owing to you out of it, and distribute the rest among the servants. I will send you word where to forward my luggage in a day or two.

Sylvia stared reflectively at the open letter.

Anna had not even signed her name. The few lines were very clear, written in a large, decided handwriting, considerably larger, or so it seemed to Sylvia, than what she had thought Anna's ordinary hand to be. But then the Englishwoman had not had the opportunity of seeing much of her Polish friend's caligraphy.

Before she had quite finished reading the mysterious letter over a second time, Madame Malfait took it out of her hand.

But Sylvia Bailey was entirely unused to being snubbed—pretty young women provided with plenty of money seldom are snubbed—and so she did not turn away and leave the hall, as Madame Malfait hoped she would do.

"What a strange thing!" she observed, in a troubled tone. "How extraordinary it is that my friend should have gone away like this, leaving her luggage behind her! What can possibly have made her want to leave Lacville in such a hurry? She was actually engaged to have dinner with our friends, Monsieur and Madame Wachner. Did she not send them any sort of message, Madame Malfait? I wish you would try and remember what she said when she went out."

The Frenchwoman looked at her with a curious stare.

"If you ask me to tell you the truth, Madame," she replied, rather insolently, "I have no doubt at all that your friend went to the Casino yesterday and lost a great deal of money—that she became, in fact, decavee."

Then, feeling ashamed, both of her rudeness and of her frankness, she added:

"But Madame Wolsky is a very honest lady, that I will say for her. You see, she left enough money to pay for everything, as well as to provide my servants with handsome gratuities. That is more than the last person who left the Pension Malfait in a hurry troubled to do!"

"But is it not extraordinary that she left her luggage, and that she did not even tell you where she was going?" repeated Sylvia in a worried, dissatisfied tone.

"Pardon me, Madame, that is not strange at all! Madame Wolsky probably went off to Paris without knowing exactly where she meant to stay, and no one wants to take luggage with them when they are looking round for an hotel. I am expecting at any moment to receive a telegram telling me where to send the luggage. You, Madame, if you permit me to say so, have not had my experience—my experience, I mean, in the matter of ladies who play at the Lacville Casino."

There was still a tone of covert insolence in her voice, and she went on, "True, Madame Wolsky has not behaved as badly as she might have done. Still, you must admit that it is rather inconsiderate of her, after engaging the room for the whole of the month of August, to go off like this!"

Madame Malfait felt thoroughly incensed, and did not trouble to conceal the fact. But as Mrs. Bailey at last began walking towards the front door, the landlady of the pension hurried after her.

"Madame will not say too much about her friend's departure, will she?" she said more graciously. "I do not want any embarrassments with the police. Everything is quite en regle, is it not? After all, Madame Wolsky had a right to go away without telling anyone of her plans, had she not, Madame?"

Sylvia turned round. "Certainly, she had an entire right to do so," she answered coldly. "But, still, I should be much obliged if you will send me word when you receive the telegram you are expecting her to send you about the luggage."

* * * * *

"Well?" cried Madame Wachner eagerly, as Sylvia silently got into the motor again. "Have you learnt anything? Have they not had news of our friend?"

"They have heard nothing since they found that odd letter of hers," said Sylvia. "You never told me about the letter, Madame Wachner?"

"Ah, that letter! I saw it, too. But it said nothing, absolutely nothing!" exclaimed Madame Wachner.

And Sylvia suddenly realised that in truth Anna's letter did say nothing.

"I should have thought they would have had a telegram to-day about the luggage."

"So would I," said Sylvia. And then musingly, "I should never, never have expected Anna Wolsky to go off like that. So—so mysteriously—"

"Well, there, I quite disagree with you! It is just what I should have expected her to do!" exclaimed Madame Wachner. "She told me of that visit you both made to the soothsayer. Perhaps she made up in her mind to follow that person's advice. Our friend was always a little mysterious, was she not? Did she ever talk to you of her family, of her friends?" She looked inquisitively at her companion.

"Yes—no," said Sylvia, hesitating. "I do not think poor Anna has many relations. You see, she is a widow. I believe her father and mother are dead."

"Ah, that is very sad! Then you do not know of anyone to write to about her?"

"I?" said Sylvia. "No, of course I don't know of anyone to write to. How could I? I haven't known her very long, you know, Madame Wachner. But we became friends almost at once."

The motor was still stationary. The driver turned round for orders. Sylvia roused herself.

"Can I drive you back to the Chalet des Muguets?" she asked. "Somehow I don't feel inclined to take a drive in the forest now."

"If you do not mind," said Madame Wachner, "I should prefer to be driven to the station, for l'Ami Fritz had to go to Paris." She laughed ruefully. "To fetch money, as usual! His system did not work at all well yesterday—poor Fritz!"

"How horrid!" said Sylvia. "It must be very disappointing to your husband when his system goes wrong."

"Yes, very," answered the wife drily. "But when one system fails—well, then he at once sets himself to inventing another! I lose a great deal more in the lower room playing with francs than Fritz does at baccarat playing with gold. You see, a system has this good about it—the player generally comes out even at the end of each month."

"Does he, indeed?"

But Sylvia was not attending to what the other was saying. She was still absorbed in the thought of her friend, and of the mystery of her friend's sudden departure from Lacville.

When at last they reached the station, Madame Wachner turned and grasped Sylvia by the hand.

"We must not let you become low-spirited!" she exclaimed. "It is a great pity your kind friend has gone away. But doubtless you will soon be going away, too?"

And, as Sylvia made no answer, "Perhaps it would be well not to say too much concerning Madame Wolsky having left like this. She might come back any moment, and then she would not like it if there had been a fuss made about it! If I were you I would tell nobody—I repeat emphatically nobody."

Madame Wachner stared significantly at Sylvia. "You do not know what the police of Lacville are like, my dear friend. They are very unpleasant people. As you were Anna's only friend in the place, they might give you considerable trouble. They would ask you where to look for her, and they would torment you incessantly. If I were you I would say as little as possible."

Madame Wachner spoke very quickly, almost breathlessly, and Sylvia felt vaguely uncomfortable. There was, of course, only one person to whom she was likely to mention the fact, and that was Paul de Virieu.

Was it possible that Madame Wachner wished to warn her against telling him of a fact which he was sure to discover for himself in the course of a day or two?



CHAPTER XV

As Sylvia drove away alone from the station, she felt exceedingly troubled and unhappy.

It was all very well for Madame Wachner to take the matter of Anna Wolsky's disappearance from Lacville so philosophically. The Wachners' acquaintance with Madame Wolsky had been really very slight, and they naturally knew nothing of the Polish woman's inner nature and temperament.

Sylvia told herself that Anna must have been in great trouble, and that something very serious must have happened to her, before she could have gone away like this, without saying anything about it.

If poor Anna had changed her mind, and gone to the Casino the day before, she might, of course, have lost all her winnings and more. Sylvia reminded herself that it stood to reason that if one could make hundreds of pounds in an hour or two, then one might equally lose hundreds of pounds in the same time. But somehow she could hardly believe that her friend had been so foolish.

Still, how else to account for Anna's disappearance, her sudden exit from Lacville? Anna Wolsky was a proud woman, and Sylvia suspected that if she had come unexpectedly to the end of her resources, she would have preferred to go away rather than confide her trouble to a new friend.

Tears slowly filled Sylvia Bailey's blue eyes. She felt deeply hurt by Anna's strange conduct.

Madame Wachner's warning as to saying as little as possible of the other's departure from Lacville had made very little impression on Sylvia, yet it so far affected her that, instead of telling Monsieur Polperro of the fact the moment she was back at the Villa du Lac, she went straight up to her own room. But when there she found that she could settle down to nothing—neither to a book nor to letters.

Since her husband's death Sylvia Bailey's social circle had become much larger, and there were a number of people who enjoyed inviting and meeting the pretty, wealthy young widow. But just now all these friends of hers in far-away England seemed quite unreal and, above all, quite uninteresting.

Sylvia told herself with bitter pain, and again the tears sprang to her eyes, that no one in the wide world really cared for her. Those people who had been going to Switzerland had thrown her over without a thought. Anna Wolsky, who had spoken as if she really loved her only a day or two ago, and who had made that love her excuse for a somewhat impertinent interference in Sylvia's private affairs, had left Lacville without even sending her word that she was leaving!

True, she had a new and a delightful friend in Count Paul de Virieu. But what if Anna had been right? What if Count Paul were a dangerous friend, or, worse still, only amusing himself at her expense? True, he had taken her to see his sister; but that, after all, might not mean very much.

Sylvia Bailey went through a very mournful hour. She felt terribly depressed and unhappy, and at last, though there was still a considerable time to dinner, she went downstairs and out into the garden with a book.

And then, in a moment, everything was changed. From sad, she became happy; from mournful and self-pitying, full of exquisite content.

Looking up, Sylvia had seen the now familiar figure of Count Paul de Virieu hurrying towards her.

How early he had left Paris! She had understood that he meant to come back by the last train, or more probably to-morrow morning.

"Paris was so hot, and my sister found that friends of hers were passing through, so I came back earlier than I meant to do," he said a little lamely; and then, "Is anything the matter?"

He looked with quick, anxious concern into her pale face and red-lidded eyes. "Did you have a bad night at the tables?"

Sylvia shook her head.

"Something so strange—so unexpected—has happened." Her mouth quivered. "Anna Wolsky has left Lacville!"

"Left Lacville?" Count Paul repeated, in almost as incredulous a tone as that in which Sylvia herself had said the words when the news had been first brought her. "Have you and she quarrelled, Mrs. Bailey? You permit?" He waited till she looked up and said listlessly, "Yes, please do," before lighting his cigarette.

"Quarrelled? Oh, no! She has simply gone away without telling me!"

The Comte de Virieu looked surprised, but not particularly sorry.

"That's very strange," he said. "I should have thought your friend was not likely to leave Lacville for many weeks to come."

His acute French mind had already glanced at all the sides of the situation, and he was surprised at the mixed feelings which filled his heart. With the Polish woman gone, his young English friend was not likely to stay on at such a place as Lacville alone.

"But where has Madame Wolsky gone?" he asked quickly. "And why has she left? Surely she is coming back?" (Sylvia could certainly stay on a few days alone at Lacville, if her friend was coming back.)

But what was this that Mrs. Bailey was saying in so plaintive a tone?

"That's the extraordinary thing about it! I haven't the slightest idea where Anna is, or why she has left Lacville." In spite of herself her voice trembled. "She did not give me the slightest warning of what she was thinking of doing; in fact, only a few days ago, when we were talking of our future plans, I tried to persuade her to come back to England with me on a long visit."

"Tell me all that happened," he said, sitting down and speaking in the eager, kindly way he seemed to keep for Sylvia alone.

And then Sylvia told him. She described the coming of the messenger, her journey to the Pension Malfait, and she repeated, as far as was possible, the exact words of her friend's curiously-worded, abrupt letter to Madame Malfait.

"They all think," she said at last, "that Anna went to the Casino and lost all her money—both the money she made, and the money she brought here; and that then, not liking to tell even me anything about it, she made up her mind to go away."

"They all think this?" repeated Count Paul, meaningly. "Whom do you mean by all, Mrs. Bailey?"

"I mean the people at the Pension Malfait, and the Wachners—"

"Then you saw the Wachners to-day?"

"I met Madame Wachner as I was going to the Pension Malfait," said Sylvia, "and she went there with me. You see, the Wachners asked Anna to have supper with them yesterday, and they waited for her ever so long, but she never came. That makes it clear that she must have left Lacville some time in the early afternoon. I wish—I cannot help wishing—that I had not gone into Paris yesterday, Count Paul."

And then suddenly she realised how ungracious her words must sound.

"No, no," she cried, impetuously. "Of course, I do not mean that! I had a very, very happy time, and your sister was very kind and sweet to me. But it makes me unhappy to think that Anna may have been worried and anxious about money with me away—"

There was a pause, and then, in a very different voice, Sylvia Bailey asked the Comte de Virieu a question that seemed to him utterly irrelevant.

"Do you believe in fortune-tellers?" she asked abruptly. "Are you superstitious?"

"Like everyone else, I have been to such people," he answered indifferently. "But if you ask my true opinion—well, no; I am quite sceptical! There may be something in what these dealers in hope sometimes say, but more often there is nothing. In fact, you must remember that a witch generally tells her client what she believes her client wishes to hear."

"Madame Wachner is inclined to think that Anna left Lacville because of something which a fortune-teller told her—indeed told both of us—before we came here." Mrs. Bailey was digging the point of her parasol in the grass.

"Tiens! Tiens!" he exclaimed. "That is an odd idea! Pray tell me all about it. Did you and your friend consult a fashionable necromancer, or did you content yourselves with going to a cheap witch?"

"To quite a cheap witch."

Sylvia laughed happily; she was beginning to feel really better now. She rather wondered that she had never told Count Paul about that strange visit to the fortune-teller, but she had been taught, as are so many Englishwomen of her type, to regard everything savouring of superstition as not only silly and weak-minded, but also as rather discreditable.

"The woman called herself Madame Cagliostra," she went on gaily, "and she only charged five francs. In the end we did pay her fifteen. But she gave us plenty for our money, I assure you—in fact, I can't remember half the things she said!"

"And to you was prophesied—?" Count Paul leant forward and looked at her fixedly.

Sylvia blushed.

"Oh, she told me all sorts of things! As you say they don't really know anything; they only guess. One of the things that she told me was that it was possible, in fact, quite likely, that I should never go back to England—I mean at all! And that if I did so, I should go as a stranger. Wasn't that absurd?"

"Quite absurd," said Count Paul, quietly. "For even if you married again, Madame; if you married a Frenchman, for instance, you would still wish to go back to your own country sometimes—at least, I suppose so."

"Of course I should." And once more Sylvia reddened violently.

But this time Count Paul felt no pleasure in watching the flood of carmine staining not only the smooth, rounded cheek, but the white forehead and neck of his fair English friend.

Sylvia went on speaking, a little quickly.

"She said almost the same thing to Anna. Wasn't that odd? I mean she said that Anna would probably never go back to her own country. But what was really very strange was that she did not seem to be able to see into Anna's future at all. And then—oh well, she behaved very oddly. After we had gone she called us back—" Sylvia stopped for a moment.

"Well?" said Count Paul eagerly. "What happened then?"

He seldom allowed himself the pleasure of looking into Sylvia's blue eyes. Now he asked for nothing better than that she should go on talking while he went on looking at her.

"She made us stand side by side—you must understand, Count, that we had already paid her and gone away—when she called us back. She stared at us in a very queer sort of way, and said that we must not leave Paris, or if we did leave Paris, we must not leave together. She said that if we did so we should run into danger."

"All rather vague," observed the Count. "And, from the little I know of her, I should fancy Madame Wolsky the last woman in the world to be really influenced by that kind of thing."

He hardly knew what he was saying. His only wish was that Sylvia would go on talking to him in the intimate, confiding fashion she was now doing. Heavens! How wretched, how lonely he had felt in Paris after seeing her off the day before!

"Oh, but at the time Anna was very much impressed," said Sylvia, quickly. "Far more than I was—I know it made her nervous when she was first playing at the tables. And when she lost so much money the first week we were here she said to me, 'That woman was right. We ought not to have come to Lacville!' But afterwards, when she began to be so wonderfully lucky, she forgot all about it, or, rather, she only remembered that the woman had said to her that she would have a great run of luck."

"Then the woman said that, too," remarked Count Paul, absently.

(What was it his godmother had said? "I felicitate you on your conquest, naughty Paul!" and he had felt angry, even disgusted, with the old lady's cynical compliment. She had added, meaningly, "Why not turn over a new leaf? Why not marry this pretty creature? We should all be pleased to see you behave like a reasonable human being.")

But Sylvia was answering him.

"Yes, the woman said that Anna would be very lucky."

The Comte de Virieu thought for a moment, and then withdrew his eyes from his friend's face.

"I presume you have already telephoned to the hotel in Paris where you first met Madame Wolsky?"

"Why, it never occurred to me to do that!" cried Sylvia. "What a good idea!"

"Wait," he said. "I will go and do it for you."

But five minutes later he came back, shaking his head. "I am sorry to say the people at the Hotel de l'Horloge know nothing of Madame Wolsky. They have had no news of her since you and she both left the place. I wonder if the Wachners know more of her disappearance than they have told you?"

"What do you mean?" asked Sylvia, very much surprised.

"They're such odd people," he said, in a dissatisfied voice. "And you know they were always with your friend. When you were not there, they hardly ever left her for a moment."

"But I thought I had told you how distressed they are about it? How they waited for her last evening and how she never came? Oh no, the Wachners know nothing," declared Sylvia confidently.



CHAPTER XVI

There is something very bewildering and distressing in the sudden disappearance or even the absence of a human being to whose affectionate and constant presence one has become accustomed. And as the hours went by, and no letter or message arrived from Anna Wolsky, Sylvia became seriously troubled, and spent much of her time walking to and from the Pension Malfait.

Surely Anna could not have left Paris, still less France, without her luggage? All sorts of dreadful possibilities crowded on Sylvia's mind; Anna Wolsky might have met with an accident: she might now be lying unidentified in a Paris hospital....

At last she grew so uneasy about her friend that she felt she must do something!

Mine host of the Villa du Lac was kind and sympathetic, but even he could suggest no way of finding out where Anna had gone.

And then Sylvia suddenly bethought herself that there was one thing she could do which she had not done: she could surely go to the police of Lacville and ask them to make inquiries in Paris as to whether there had been an accident of which the victim in any way recalled Anna Wolsky.

To her surprise, M. Polperro shook his head very decidedly.

"Oh no, do not go to the police!" he said in an anxious tone. "No, no, I do not advise you to do that! Heaven knows I would do anything in reason to help you, Madame, to find your friend. But I beg of you not to ask me to go for you to the police!"

Sylvia was very much puzzled. Why should M. Polperro be so unwilling to seek the help of the law in so simple a matter as this?

"I will go myself," she said.

And just then—they were standing in the hall together—the Comte de Virieu came up.

"What is it you will do yourself, Madame?" he asked, smiling.

Sylvia turned to him eagerly.

"I feel that I should like to speak to the police about Anna Wolsky," she exclaimed. "It is the first thing one would do in England if a friend suddenly disappeared—in fact, the police are always looking for people who have gone away in a mysterious manner. You see, I can't help being afraid, Count Paul"—she lowered her voice—"that Anna has met with some dreadful accident. She hasn't a friend in Paris! Suppose she is lying now in some hospital, unable to make herself understood? I only wish that I had a photograph of Anna that I could take to them."

"Well, there is a possibility that this may be so. But remember it is even more probable that Madame Wolsky is quite well, and that she will be annoyed at your taking any such step to find her."

"Yes," said Sylvia, slowly. "I know that is quite possible. And yet—and yet it is so very unlike Anna not to send me a word of explanation! And then, you know in that letter she left in her room at the Pension Malfait she positively promised to send a telegram about her luggage. Surely it is very strange that she has not done that?"

"Well, if you really wish the police communicated with," said the Comte de Virieu, "I will go to the police-station here, with pleasure."

"Why should we not go together?" asked Sylvia, hesitatingly.

"By all means. But think over what we are to say when we get there. If your friend had not left the letter behind her, then, of course it would be our positive duty to communicate with the police. But I cannot help being afraid—" He stopped abruptly.

"Of what are you afraid?" asked Sylvia eagerly.

"I am afraid that Madame Wolsky may be very much offended by your interference in the matter."

"Oh, no!" cried Sylvia. "Indeed, in that you are quite mistaken! I know Anna would never be offended by anything I could do. She was very fond of me, and so am I of her. But in any case I am willing to risk it. You see"—her voice broke, quivered—"I am really very unhappy about Anna—"

"When would you like to go to the Commissioner of Police?" asked the Count.

"Is there any reason why we should not go now?"

"No. Let us go at once. I only had the feeling that you might hear from her any moment."

Together they walked up into the little town of Lacville. To each any expedition in which the other took part had become delightful. They were together now more than they had ever been before. No, Count Paul could not be sorry that Sylvia's friend had left Lacville. He had no wish for her return.

At last they came to a rather mean-looking white house; out of one of the windows hung a tricolour flag.

"Here we are!" he said briefly.

"It doesn't look a very imposing place," said Sylvia smiling.

But all the same, as the Count rang the bell Sylvia suddenly felt as if she would like to run away! After all, what should she say to the Commissioner of Police? Would he think her interference in Anna's affairs strange and uncalled for? But she kept her thoughts to herself.

They were shown into a room where a tired-looking man bent over a large, ink-stained table littered over with papers.

"Monsieur? Madame?" he glanced up inquiringly, and gave them a searching look. But he did not rise from the table, as Sylvia expected him to do. "What can I do for you?" he said. "I am at your service," and again he stared with insistent curiosity at the couple before him, at the well-dressed young Englishwoman and at her French companion.

The Count explained at some length why they had come.

And then at last the Commissioner of Police got up.

"Madame has now been at Lacville three weeks?"—and he quickly made a note of the fact on a little tablet he held in his hand. "And her friend, a Polish lady named Wolsky, has left Lacville rather suddenly? Madame has, however, received a letter from her friend explaining that she had to leave unexpectedly?"

"No," said Sylvia, quickly, "the letter was not sent to me; it was left by my friend in her bed-room at the Pension Malfait. You see, the strange thing, Monsieur, is that Madame Wolsky left all her luggage. She took absolutely nothing with her, excepting, of course, her money. And as yet nothing has come from her, although she promised to telegraph where her luggage was to be sent on to her! I come to you because I am afraid that she had met with some accident in the Paris streets, and I thought you would be able to telephone for us to the Paris Police."

She looked very piteously at the French official, and his face softened, a kindly look came over it.

"Well, Madame," he said, "I will certainly do everything I can. But I must ask you to provide me first with a few more particulars about your friend."

"I will tell you everything I know. But I really do not know very much."

"Her age?" said the Commissioner.

"I do not know her age, but I suppose she is about thirty."

"The place of her birth?"

Sylvia shook her head.

"What is her permanent address? Surely you know with whom you could communicate the news of an accident having happened to her?"

"I am afraid I don't even know that." Sylvia began to feel rather foolish. But—but was it so strange after all? Who among the people she was now living with knew anything of her far-away English home? If anything happened to herself, for instance? Even Count Paul would not know to whom to write. It was an odd, rather an uncomfortable thought.

The Commissioner went to a drawer and pulled out from it a portfolio filled with loose pieces of paper.

"Malfait? Malfait? Malfait?" he muttered interrogatively to himself. And at last he found what he was looking for. It was a large sheet, on which was inscribed in large round letters "Pension Malfait." There were many close lines of writing under the words. He looked down and read through all that was there.

"The Pension Malfait has a good reputation!" he exclaimed, in a relieved tone. "I gather from what you say, Monsieur,"—he gave a quick shrewd look at the Count—"that Madame and her friend did not play in a serious sense at the Casino—I mean, there was no large sum of money in question?"

Count Paul hesitated—but Sylvia thought that surely it were better to tell the truth.

"Yes," she said, "my friend did play, and she played rather high. She must have had a large sum of money in her possession when she left Lacville, unless she lost it all on the last day. But I was in Paris, and so I don't know what she did."

The Commissioner looked grave.

"Ah, but that alters the case very much!" he said. "I must request you to come with me to the Pension Malfait. We had better pursue our inquiries there. If this Madame Wolsky had a large sum of money in notes and gold, it becomes very important that we should know where she is."

They all three left the shabby little house together, and Sylvia could not help wondering what would happen there while they were gone. But the Commissioner solved her doubts by turning the key in the door.

The Count hailed a cab, and they all got into it. Then followed a curious little drive. The Commissioner made polite conversation with Mrs. Bailey. He spoke of the beauties of Lacville. "And Madame," he said, pleasantly, "is staying at the Villa du Lac? It is a charming house, with historic associations."

Sylvia was surprised. She remembered clearly that she had not told the police official where she was staying.

When they reached the Pension Malfait they were kept waiting a few moments, but at last M. Malfait appeared in the hall. He received them with obsequious amiability.