With that picturesque, well-remembered landscape of rugged mountain heights, olive-clad slopes, and calm sea, memories sad and bitter continued to crowd upon her. This place, among the fairest on earth, was to her the most hateful and loathsome. With it were associated all the evil days which had passed so drearily; all the poverty which had kept her and her dead companion shabby and heavy-hearted; all the months of anxiety and weariness in days when their rooms were poorly furnished and the next meal had been an event of uncertainty. A few months of life at a good hotel, amid congenial society, would always be followed by many months of residence high up in some back street, where the noise was eternal, where the screaming of loud-voiced Frenchwomen sounded above and below, where clothes were hung upon the drab jalousies to air in the sun, and where the smell of garlic came in at the windows. In such a life the quiet English homeliness of Stratfield Mortimer had come as a welcome rest. She had loved their quaint old ivied cottage, and had fondly believed they would remain there always, happy and contented. But, alas! Nelly's tragic end had changed it all. Zertho, her reckless but animated companion of the old days, was back again with them, and once more they were upon the very spot that she had vowed so often she would never again revisit. These reflections brought with them thoughts of Nelly. She recollected how, often and often, they would stroll together along that terrace while Zertho and her father sat hour after hour at the tables, regardless of meal-times, and how sometimes, hungry and having no money, they would go in and obtain from one or other of the men a ten-franc piece with which to get their dinner at the cheap little restaurant they knew of down in La Condamine. It was upon that very gravelled walk, with its inviting seats, high palms, and banks of flowers, that they had one afternoon passed a tall, good-looking young Englishman not much older than themselves. He had smiled at them, and they, always delighted at the chance of an innocent flirtation, had laughed in return. He had then raised his hat, spoken to them, and strolled along at Nellie's side. His name was Charles Holroyde, and it was he who, a few weeks later, had given Nelly the costly brooch which had been stolen from her throat by her assassin. She glanced at the seat beside which she was standing. It was the one on which they had sat that sunny afternoon when they chatted merrily, and he had first given the two girls his card. She sighed. Those days were passed, and even Nelly, her companion and confidante, was no more. She was, she reflected gloomily, without a single real friend. At that moment, however, she felt a light hand upon her shoulder behind her, and a voice exclaimed,-- "Liane! At last!" She turned quickly with a start, and next instant found herself face to face with George Stratfield.