“Pray do not disturb yourself, Miss Turner,” said Lady Molly in broken English, as she sank into a chair, and beckoned me to do likewise. “Pray sit down--I vill be brief. You have a compromising photograph--is it not?--of my daughter-in-law ze Countess of Hohengebirg. I am ze Grand Duchess of Starkburg-Nauheim--zis is my daughter, ze Princess Amalie. We are here incognito. You understand? Not?” And, with inimitable elegance of gesture, my dear lady raised a pair of “starers” to her eyes and fixed them on Jane Turner’s quaking figure. Never had I seen suspicion, nay terror, depicted so plainly on a young face, but I will do the girl the justice to state that she pulled herself together with marvellous strength of will. She fought down her awed respect of this great lady; or rather shall I say that the British middle-class want of respect for social superiority, especially if it be foreign, now stood her in good stead? “I don’t know what you are talking about,” she said with an arrogant toss of the head. “Zat is a lie, is it not?” rejoined Lady Molly calmly, as she drew from her reticule the typewritten letter which Jane Turner had sent to the Countess of Hohengebirg. “Zis you wrote to my daughter-in-law; ze letter reached me instead of her. It interests me much. I vill give you two tousend pounds for ze photograph of her and Mr.--er--Rumboldt. You vill sell it to me for zat, is it not?” The production of the letter had somewhat cowed Jane’s bold spirit. But she was still defiant. “I haven’t got the photograph here,” she said. “Ah, no! but you vill get it--yes?” said my lady, quietly replacing the letter in her reticule. “In ze letter you offer to get it for tousend pound. I vill give you two tousend. To-day is a holiday for you. You vill get ze photograph from ze gentleman--not? And I vill vait here till you come back.” Whereupon she rearranged her skirts round her and folded her hands placidly, like one prepared to wait. “I haven’t got the photograph,” said Jane Turner, doggedly, “and I can’t get it to-day. The--the person who has it doesn’t live in Bristol.” “No? Ah! but quite close, isn’t it?” rejoined my lady, placidly. “I can vait all ze day.” “No, you shan’t!” retorted Jane Turner, whose voice now shook with obvious rage or fear--I knew not which. “I can’t get the photograph to-day--so there! And I won’t sell it to you--I won’t. I don’t want your two thousand pounds. How do I know you are not an impostor?”