“And that is your last word?” asked a woman's voice in French. She used the familiar _ton_. Her accents were tearful and pleading. “Yes,” replied a man's voice brutally. “There, there! Do not make any scenes. I go because it is my good pleasure. What have you to say against it?” “But I love you, I love you, Armand!” “Bah!” laughed the man, “they say that always. Here are the thousand francs.” Clytie, who had involuntarily overheard this scrap of the conversation, hastened to shut the window. The sounds died away into murmurs dimly perceptible through the partition wall. Then she heard the room door slam violently and a heavy step tramp down the passage. Some two hours later she was sitting in the salon of the hotel, reading the papers and looking idly out upon the market-booths in the little _place_. Kent and Farquharson had gone out together to devote a scientific forenoon to the monuments of the town, and Caroline was writing letters in her own room. Clytie was alone. Suddenly the door opened and a woman, scarcely more than a girl, appeared on the threshold. She made a step forward, but perceiving Clytie by the window, she hesitated, irresolute whether to advance or retire. Clytie looked up quickly, caught a glance which she interpreted as one of appeal. “Oh, enter, mademoiselle,” she said, with a smile. The newcomer murmured a “_Merci_,” entered, closed the door, and sitting down on the faded sofa by the wall, commenced turning over the pages of an old illustrated paper. Clytie went on with her _Figaro_. Presently her ear caught a little sniffling sob. She turned round. Her companion was squeezing a wet rag of a handkerchief in her hand, her head turned away towards the paper; she was crying. Clytie rose, moved softly across the room. But as she was going through the doorway she saw the girl, abandoning herself to her misery, bury her face upon the sofa cushion. Clytie was touched. She went back to the girl, laid her hand softly on her shoulder. “Mademoiselle!” The girl started, raised a pretty, tear-stained face, looked at Clytie wistfully out of her light blue eyes, her lips quivering. “You are in trouble,” said Clytie. “Oh, mademoiselle, you are very good,” cried the other--“_oui; je suis bien malheureuse_. But you must leave me. You are a young girl well brought up, whilst I----_Merci_, mademoiselle; you can do nothing.” The voice struck a chord of association. Where had she heard it recently? Quickly it flashed upon her, the scrap of dialogue she had overheard that morning. The girl again hid her face. The low-cut dress, beloved by Frenchwomen, disclosed a shapely neck, on which clustered coquettishly a few tiny madcap curls below the smooth, upbrushed, fair hair. Her figure was young and graceful, relaxed now in the attitude of abandonment.