Her father was out, and on going into her own room she locked the door, cast down her sunshade, tossed her hat carelessly aside, and pushing her hair from her fevered brow with both hands, stood at the open window gazing aimlessly out upon the sea. A sense of utter loneliness crept over her forlorn heart. She was, she told herself, entirely friendless, now that her father desired her to marry Zertho. Hers had been at best a cheerless, melancholy life, yet it was now without either hope, happiness, or love. The sea stretching before her was like her own future, impenetrable, a great grey expanse, dismal and limitless, without a single gleam of brightness, growing every instant darker, more obscure, more mysterious. Thoughts of the man she loved so fondly surged through her troubled mind. She remembered how sad and melancholy he had looked when she had passed him by; how bitterly he had smiled when she bowed to him. The memory of his dear face brought back to her all the terrible past, all the hopelessness of the future, all the hideousness of the truth. She sank beside her bed, and burying her face in the white coverlet gave way to her emotion, shedding a torrent of tears. The dusk deepened, the twilight faded and darkness fell, still she sobbed on, murmuring constantly the name of the one man on earth she loved. A low tapping at the door aroused her, and thinking it was her father she hastily dried her eyes and stumbled blindly across the dark room to admit him. It was, however, the Provencal _femme de chambre_, who handed her a note, saying in her quaint patois-- "A letter for Mademoiselle. It was brought a minute or two ago by a man who gave it to me, with strict injunctions to give it only into Mademoiselle's own hands." "Thank you, Justine," she answered, in a low hoarse voice, then, closing the door again, she lit a candle, and mechanically tearing open the note found that it was dated from the Villa Fortunee, Monaco, and signed by Mariette. In it the woman who was her enemy made a strange request. She first asked that she should say no word to her father or to Zertho regarding the receipt of the note or inform them of her address, and then, continuing, she wrote: "To-morrow, at two o'clock, call upon George Stratfield, who is, as you know, staying at the Grand Hotel, and he will bring you over here to my house. It is imperative that I should see you. Fear nothing, but come. George is my friend, and he will be awaiting you." CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. SINNED AGAINST.