"As he has only asked for you, and no one else, I suppose he does. At any rate I have no lively curiosity as to his visit, and I don't suppose Harry has either. Most likely it's some man who wants to sell you jewellery or cameos, or to ask you for a subscription for the chaplain, or to beg of you on some pretext or other; they are always at it. He saw your name on the hotel list standing without any male protector of the same name. No doubt he thinks you are an elderly spinster with money." "I expect it's something of that sort, Alice," Harry laughed. But Alice insisted that she was convinced that the mysterious stranger had something important to communicate to her. As she was taking her things off there was a knock at the door, and the waiter said-- "The gentleman who before called is below." "Show him up into our sitting-room," she said, and at once went in to receive him. "He's just coming up, uncle," she said, tapping at Captain Bayley's door. He opened it a few inches. "I have got my pistol handy, Alice, in case you scream." Alice laughed, and as she turned round there was a knock at the door. The waiter announced Monsieur Adams, and an elderly gentleman entered. "You must be surprised at the intrusion of a stranger at this hour of the evening, Miss Hardy; but my excuse must be that I have for nearly two months been following your footsteps, and I was afraid that if I put off calling upon you until the morning I might find that you had gone." "Following me for two months!" Alice repeated, in great surprise. "I do not understand, sir." "Naturally, Miss Hardy, the statement appears a strange one to you; but the fact is I made a promise to deliver a message to you. I found upon reaching England that you had left; I obtained your address at Cairo, and went there only to find you had left a fortnight before my arrival; then I followed you to Naples, and was a week too late. At Rome I missed you by a day, and as I could not learn there, at your hotel, where you were going next, beyond the fact that you had gone North, I have been hunting for you ever since." "But, sir," Alice said, more and more surprised, "what message could possibly be of sufficient importance for you to undertake so long a journey to deliver it?" "I did not know how long you might be before you returned to England, Miss Hardy, and as I knew how anxiously the answer to my message would be expected, I preferred to follow you, in order that there might be no more delay than necessary." Suddenly a thought flashed across Alice Hardy's brain. She advanced a step nearer to her visitor, and exclaimed-- "Do you come from my cousin Frank?" "You have guessed rightly. I met him abroad; I am not at liberty at present to say where. He rendered me one of the greatest services one man can render to another--he saved my life, and did much more; but upon that it is not now necessary to enter."