gain the mid-day sun was gilding the canopy of his couch when Paul awoke. He sprang up and dressed hurriedly. That day he must discover who the lady was.

Renewed inquiries of Monsieur Jacques yielded no further information. Rose-red lips and coils of raven hair no longer made on the maÎtre d'hÔtel the same impression as in the golden days when the band played dreamy waltzes and dashing gentlemen leaned caressingly over dazzling shoulders.

Of the man he had felled, Paul spoke never a word. Apparently he had vanished as he had come—unknown.

"Truly, Sir Paul, there has been no lady here to answer your description. But stop! A Russian lady perhaps, you say? Il est possible." Monsieur Jacques laid a searching finger on his speculative brow. "Mademoiselle Vseslavitch, peut-Être. Yes—tall, surely,—a brunette, too, like most of those Russians. She left this morning, quite early."

Paul's heart leaped, only to stop again at the last sentence.

"Left? Where did she go, mon ami?" He and Monsieur Jacques were good friends, and Paul knew that his interest, though perhaps unaccountable to the old inn-keeper, was still in safe hands.

"That I do not know. But we shall see what we shall see. One moment, Monsieur."

Calling a porter, the maÎtre d'hotel gesticulated with him for a moment. Then he returned to where Paul waited impatiently.

"Emil here says that he purchased bookings to Langres for the lady," he said.

Langres! Isabella and London were a million miles from Langres at that instant! The memory of that kiss alone remained.

Paul's mind was made up. He would start for Langres that very day. He hurried to his rooms, where Baxter was soon packing his boxes. And then Paul's eye fell on the table, on the picture of Isabella that he had brought with him. She had given him an excellent likeness, in a leather case, the day he came away. Her frank eyes seemed to smile at him amusedly.

Paul pulled himself together.

"I am mad!" he told himself—"to be carried away by a momentary impulse, to forget all for a fancied resemblance!... Paris! Baxter!" he said curtly, turning to his valet.

And when Paul reached the station it was with the firmest of resolutions to hurry home, stopping only one night in Paris to break the tiresome journey.

"En voiture!" the guards sang out, and Paul climbed into his carriage, once more the staid M. P. he thought—But was he? Could he ever be again?

Toward Paris, then, the fast mail bore him rapidly; and at the same time toward Langres. When they reached BÂle, Baxter telegraphed to the HÔtel du Rhin in Paris for a suite. At Belfort Paul directed him to send another message cancelling the reservation. And—alas for Paul's good resolutions!—at the station of Langres-Marne, a mile from the old cathedral town itself, he left the train, taking only a big Gladstone bag with him, and sent Baxter on alone to Paris, to wait until he should arrive.

Another short journey remained, so in company with the inevitable soldier, priest, and old lady with a huge umbrella, Paul took a seat in one of the open cars of the little rack-and-pinion railway that runs up the steep hill through the apple orchards to the old cathedral city. In a few minutes the train stopped at a miniature station.

It had begun to rain, and Paul was conscious that he was an object of interest as he stood on the steps of the station looking about him in search of a fiacre.

No vehicle was in sight, so he set himself to tramp up the hill to the HÔtel de l'Europe, at which he had stayed long years before, and of which he still entertained a lively recollection of its cleanness and its quaintness.

The hÔtel slept, and Verdayne heard the bell pealing through the silent house as he stood shivering and waiting on the doorstep.

Presently he heard the sound of bolts being withdrawn and a shock-headed night porter thrust his face out into the damp evening air.

The sight of Sir Paul's tall figure drew his immediate attention.

"What does Monsieur require?" he asked in accents which were at once civil and surprised.

"Let me in," said Verdayne, "and I will do my best to explain."

The man led the way to a delightfully large and airy room, half salon, half chambre À coucher, where Paul was glad to remove the stains of travel.

First he took the precaution of drawing a couple of half-crowns from his pocket and slipping them into the man's hand.

"You need not be alarmed at my appearance," he said. "I am not a fugitive from justice. I am merely an English gentleman who has lost his friends and who is in search of them.

"Tell me if you have staying in this hotel a tall young lady with dark hair and brilliant eyes? It is possible that she is travelling incognito, but if she has given her right name it will be Mademoiselle Vseslavitch."

The man scratched his head and looked worried.

"I would help Monsieur if I could," he said, "but I can only assure him that there is no lady staying in this hotel at all. Alas! the season is very bad, and we have few visitors."

That this dark-haired lady was not at the HÔtel de l'Europe did not disconcert Verdayne very much. He had foreseen that she was hardly likely to stay in the hotel with which English tourists would be acquainted.

"It is many years," he said to the man, "since I stayed here. In fact, I have practically no recollection of Langres except of this hotel and the cathedral. I should therefore be very much obliged if you could furnish me with a complete list of all the other hotels."

"Why now," said the man, "that is an exceedingly simple affair." And he rattled off a list.

Paul repeated them after him.

"And you think," he asked, "that this is a complete list?"

"Quite complete, I should say," said the man, "for Monsieur's purpose.

"Permit me to help Monsieur," he went on. "Monsieur will pardon me, but possibly this may be some romance."

He shrugged his shoulders, but with such an air of civility and respect that Verdayne could not quarrel with him.

"At any rate, it is not my business to inquire. For the time it is merely my end to serve Monsieur well. Be seated for a moment while I make coffee and bring rolls and butter. It will fortify Monsieur against the damp air."

Laughing a little, Paul suffered the man to bustle about. The fellow was deft indeed, and soon Verdayne was glad that he had listened to his counsel.

Midnight drew near and the porter turned the lights out, but Paul sat until cockcrow, smoking and pondering on the strange paths into which one's feet are sometimes led.

Shortly after eight, the man, who had been busy cleaning boots, returned and made a gesture towards the sunlight, which was streaming into the room.

"If Monsieur is in haste," he said, "I will not seek to detain him. By this time the other hotels will be open. If Monsieur's mission is urgent he should continue his search."

His air was so friendly and so charming that Paul resorted to the only expression of appreciation of which he could conceive. He gave the man another ten francs, and pledged him to silence. None the less, he had little faith that the man would keep his tongue still. A Frenchman must talk.

After a light breakfast Paul went out into the fresh morning air and began his search. In turn he visited the HÔtel de la Poste, le Grand, de la Cloche, and the rest of them, wandering around the cobbled streets of the sleepy village, and strolling through the market-place, gay with the green and red and russet of its vegetables, the blue and crimson of the umbrellas over the stalls. Then, in the unclouded sunshine, he walked around the ancient ramparts, from which point of vantage he looked down upon wide stretches of sunlit country, dotted here and there with vineyards.

It cost him a pretty sum to purchase the confidence of half-suspicious porters, but by the time he had worked through the list with which the friendly servitor had provided him he had come to the conclusion that Mademoiselle Vseslavitch was, of a certainty, not in one of these hostelries.

Was she still in Langres? The doubt troubled Paul greatly.

All the time, as he walked on through the narrow streets, Paul's eyes sought the object of his quest in vain. Apparently he was the only foreigner in the town. It was nearly twelve as he turned into the Promenade de la Blanche Fontaine, a fine wide avenue of chestnut trees which recalled to Paul the Broad Walk at Oxford, and being the only pedestrian abroad at that hour, he said a few swear-words to himself by way of consolation.

Clearly, this search for the lady might prove a case for Sherlock Holmes, while Paul's own detective ability, he admitted, was more of the Dr. Watson order.