Together the two women had searched every article of Dick's effects, but they could find no clue to his address or identity. Annette remembered that he had had a pocket-book, and seeing him take a note out of it to pay for the tickets. But the pocket-book could not be found, or any money. It was evident that he had been robbed that first evening when he was drinking. Some of his handkerchiefs were marked with four initials, R. L. G. M. "Richard Le Geyt M. Then he had another name as well," said Mrs. Stoddart. "You can't recall having ever heard it?" Annette shook her head. "He is supposed to be an English lord," she said, "and very rich. And he rides his own horses, and makes and loses a great deal of money on the turf. And he is peculiar--very depressed one year, and very wild the next. That is all that people like us who are not his social equals know of him." "I do not even know what _your_ name is," said Mrs. Stoddart tentatively, as she rearranged Dick's clothes in the drawers, and took up a bottle of lotion which had evidently been intended for his strained neck. "My name is Annette." "Well, Annette, I think the best thing you can do is to write to your home and say that you are coming back to it immediately." "I have no home." Mrs. Stoddart was silent. Any information which Annette vouchsafed about herself always seemed to entail silence. "I have made up my mind," Annette went on, "to stay with Dick till he is better. He is the only person I care a little bit about." "No, Annette, you do not care for him. It is remorse for your neglect of him that makes you nurse him with such devotion." "I do not love him," said Annette. "But then, how could I? I hardly know him. But he meant to be kind to me. He was the only person who was kind. He tried to save me, though not in the right way. Poor Dick, he does not know much. But I must stay and nurse him till he is better. I can't desert him." "My dear," said Mrs. Stoddart impatiently, "that is all very well, but you cannot remain here without a scandal. It is different for an old woman like myself. And though we have not yet got into touch with his family, we shall directly. If I can't get a clue otherwise, I shall apply to the police. You must think of your own character." "I do not care about my character," said Annette in the same tone in which she might have said she did not care for black coffee. "But I do," said Mrs. Stoddart to herself. "And I have a little money," Annette continued,--"at least, not much money, only a few louis,--but I have these." And she drew out from her neck a row of pearls. They were not large pearls, but they were even and beautifully matched. "They were mother's," she said. "They will be enough for the doctor and the nurse and the hotel bill, won't they?" Mrs. Stoddart put down the bottle of lotion and took the pearls in her hand, and bent over them, trying to hide her amazement.