"Just so," I replied, wondering whether I should endeavor to obtain

from Marie Deschamps information which would be useful to Rosa.

By the time that the star of the Diana had said goodbye to certain

male acquaintances, and had gone through a complicated dialogue with

her maid on the subject of dress-trunks, the clock pointed almost to

nine, and a porter rushed us--Marie and myself--into an empty

compartment of a composite coach near to the engine. The compartment

was first class, but it evidently belonged to an ancient order of

rolling stock, and the vivacious Marie criticized it with considerable

freedom. The wind howled, positively howled, in the station.

"I wish I wasn't going," said the lady. "I shall be horribly ill."

"You probably will," I said, to tease her, idly opening the Globe. "It

seems that the morning steamer from Calais wasn't able to make either

Dover or Folkestone, and has returned to Calais. Imagine the state of

mind of the passengers!"

"Ugh! Oh, Mr. Foster, what is that case by your side?"

"It is a jewel-case."

"What a big one!"

She did not conceal her desire to see the inside of it, but I felt

that I could not, even to satisfy her charming curiosity, expose the

interior of Rosa's jewel-case in a railway carriage, and so I edged

away from the topic with as much adroitness as I was capable of.

The pretty girl pouted, and asked me for the Globe, behind which she

buried herself. She kept murmuring aloud extracts from the Globe's

realistic description of the weather, and then she jumped up.

"I'm not going."

"Not going?"

"No. The weather's too awful. These newspaper accounts frighten me."

"But the Casino de Paris?"

"A fig for it! They must wait for me, that's all. I'll try again

to-morrow. Will you mind telling the guard to get my boxes out,

there's a dear Mr. Foster, and I'll endeavor to find that maid of

mine?"

The train was already five minutes late in starting; she delayed it

quite another five minutes, and enjoyed the process. And it was I who

meekly received the objurgations of porters and guard. My reward was a

smile, given with a full sense of its immense value.

"Good-by, Mr. Foster. Take care of your precious jewel-case."

I had carried the thing in my hand up and down the platform. I ran to

my carriage, and jumped in breathless as the train whistled.

"Pleasant journey!" the witch called out, waving her small hand to me.

I bowed to her from the window, laughing. She was a genial soul, and

the incident had not been without amusement.

After I had shut the carriage door, and glanced out of the window for

a moment in the approved way, I sank, faintly smiling at the episode,

into my corner, and then I observed with a start that the opposite

corner was occupied. Another traveller had got into the compartment

while I had been coursing about the platform on behalf of Marie, and

that traveller was the mysterious and sinister creature whom I had met

twice before--once in Oxford Street, and once again during the night

watch in the cathedral at Bruges. He must have made up his mind to

travel rather suddenly, for, in spite of the weather, he had neither

overcoat nor umbrella--merely the frock coat and silk hat of

Piccadilly. But there was no spot of rain on him, and no sign of

disarray.




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