Mademoiselle Louise Aubin possessed all the attributes of her Gallic blood. She was vain of her voluptuous charms, susceptible to flattery, and prone to blurt out on the least provocation the scanty ideas in her empty little head as soon as and whenever they entered it. She was further endowed with a fiery temper and an eager impetuosity, which often led her to act without thought of consequences. In the last-named characteristics was to be found the reason why in the cool of the evening she set out to walk from the Manor House to Ottermouth in order to lay information with the police against the man she believed to be the slayer of Levi Levison. For once in a way she had said nothing of her purpose in the servants' hall, expecting to score a greater dramatic effect by announcing on her return that she had been the means of causing the murderer's arrest. Long before the afternoon party had dispersed the reason for the hurried adjournment from the marsh back to the house had become known--first among the guests, from whom there was no longer any necessity to keep secret what was bound to be noised abroad in an hour or two, and then among the members of the domestic staff, to whom the news spread like wildfire. The earliest intelligence had been quickly supplemented by further details of description and identification which left no doubt in the mind of Louise that the dead man was the hero of her three weeks' flirtation. Equally sure was she that he had come by his death at the hands of that older lover, the Breton peasant and sailor who had adored her in her native village long before she had dreamed of becoming _femme de chambre_ to the daughter of an English millionaire. Yes, she told herself, assuredly Pierre Legros, the French huckster of onions, had killed her latest admirer out of insensate jealousy, and he should suffer for it if there was any power in a woman's tongue. Mr. Levison had held out glittering prospects, which it was galling to have destroyed by a persistent boor such as Pierre. Travers Nugent's human tool had described himself as "a financial agent"--a phrase which to the French girl's ears sounded the brazen tocsin of untold wealth, and which she could not know covered as many iniquities as that other comprehensive term--"a resting actress." Pierre Legros must certainly pay the penalty for shattering her dreams of riches and luxury, and to secure that laudable vengeance she started for Ottermouth as soon as she had dressed her young mistress for dinner. The path skirting the marshes was her nearest way, but she dared not pass the spot where the crime had been committed, and where there would probably be a crowd of sightseers attracted to the scene. She chose the longer route along the high road, and by the time she had walked a mile between the leafy hedgerows she began to ask herself questions.