She rang the bell, and he waited by her side until she was admitted to the tall, gloomy lodging-house. And ever after it struck him that her backward smile as she disappeared was charged with some special significance. The door closed upon her, and he moved reluctantly away. When next he asked for her, some twelve hours later, he was told that Mademoiselle had left. His most eager inquiries and most lavish bribes could gain no further information than that she had left for England, and that her address was--London. _Chapter VII_ MISS PELLISSIER'S SUSPICIONS "Anna!" Anna kissed her sister and nodded to her aunt. Then she sat down--uninvited--and looked from one to the other curiously. There was something about their greeting and the tone of Annabel's exclamation which puzzled her. "I wish," she said, "that you would leave off looking at me as though I were something grisly. I am your very dutiful niece, aunt, and your most devoted sister, Annabel. I haven't murdered any one, or broken the law in any way that I know of. Perhaps you will explain the state of panic into which I seem to have thrown you." Annabel, who was looking very well, and who was most becomingly dressed, moved to a seat from which she could command a view of the road outside. She was the first to recover herself. Her aunt, a faded, anæmic-looking lady of somewhat too obtrusive gentility, was still sitting with her hand pressed to her heart. Annabel looked up and down the empty street, and then turned to her sister. "For one thing, Anna," she remarked, "we had not the slightest idea that you had left, or were leaving Paris. You did not say a word about it last week, nor have you written. It is quite a descent from the clouds, isn't it?" "I will accept that," Anna said, "as accounting for the surprise. Perhaps you will now explain the alarm." Miss Pellissier was beginning to recover herself. She too at once developed an anxious interest in the street outside. "I am sure, Anna," she said, "I do not see why we should conceal the truth from you. We are expecting a visit from Sir John Ferringhall at any moment. He is coming here to tea." "Well?" Anna remarked calmly. "Sir John," her aunt repeated, with thin emphasis, "is coming to see your sister." Anna drummed impatiently with her fingers against the arm of her chair. "Well!" she declared good-humouredly. "I shan't eat him." Miss Pellissier stiffened visibly. "This is not a matter altogether for levity, Anna," she said. "Your sister's future is at stake. I imagine that even you must realize that this is of some importance." Anna glanced towards her sister, but the latter avoided her eyes. "I have always," she admitted calmly, "taken a certain amount of interest in Annabel's future. I should like to know how it is concerned with Sir John Ferringhall, and how my presence intervenes."