“Well,” replied my dear lady after awhile, resuming her gravity, “we have a way in our profession of putting two and two together, haven’t we? And in this case it was not very difficult. The assignations for secret meetings at out-of-the-way railway stations which were addressed to H. S. H. in the columns of the _West of England Times_ recently, gave me one clue, shall we say? The mysterious assault on a young woman, whose home was close to those very railway stations as well as to Bristol Castle--your parents’ residence--where you have frequently been staying of late, was another piece that fitted in the puzzle; whilst the number of copies of the _West of England Times_ that were found in that same young woman’s room helped to draw my thoughts to her. Then your visit to me to-day--it is very simple, you see.” “I suppose so,” said H. S. H. with a sigh. “Only it is worse even than you suggest, for that horrid Jane Turner, to whom I had been ever so kind when I was a girl, took a snapshot of me and Mr. Rumboldt standing on the steps of the Hôtel des Bains at Boulogne. I saw her doing it and rushed down the steps to stop her. She talked quite nicely then--hypocritical wretch!--and said that perhaps the plate would be no good when it was developed, and if it were she would destroy it. I was not to worry; she would contrive to let me know through the agony column of the _West of England Times_, which--as I was going home to Bristol Castle to stay with my parents--I could see every day, but she had no idea I should have minded, and all that sort of rigmarole. Oh! she is a wicked girl, isn’t she, to worry me so?” And once again the lace handkerchief found its way to the most beautiful pair of blue eyes I think I have ever seen. I could not help smiling, though I was really very sorry for the silly, emotional, dear little thing. “And instead of reassurance in the _West of England Times_, you found a demand for a secret meeting at a country railway station?” “Yes! And when I went there--terrified lest I should be seen--Jane Turner did not meet me herself. Her mother came and at once talked of selling the photograph to my husband or to my mother-in-law. She said it was worth four thousand pounds to Jane, and that she had advised her daughter not to sell it to me for less.” “What did you reply?” “That I hadn’t got four thousand pounds,” said the Countess ruefully; “so after a lot of argument it was agreed that I was to pay Jane two hundred and fifty pounds a year out of my dress allowance. She would keep the negative as security, but promised never to let anyone see it so long as she got her money regularly. It was also arranged that whenever I stayed with my parents at Bristol Castle, Jane would make appointments to meet me through the columns of the _West of England Times_, and I was to pay up the instalments then just as she directed.”