"If it be in my power to assist you, mademoiselle, I will do so with the greatest pleasure. But, of course, I cannot without knowing the circumstances." "And I regret that my lips are closed concerning them," she sighed, looking straight before her despairingly. "Do you fear to go alone?" "I fear my enemies no longer," was her reply as she glanced at the little gold watch in her belt. "I shall be in Paris before noon--thanks to you, m'sieur." "Well, when you first made the request I had no idea of the urgency of your journey," I remarked. "But I'm glad, very glad, that I've had an opportunity of rendering you some slight service." "Slight, m'sieur? Why, you have saved me! I owe you a debt which I can never repay--never." And the laces at her throat rose and fell as she sighed, her wonderful eyes still fixed upon me. Gradually the wintry sun rose over the bare, frozen wine-lands over which we were speeding, when with a sudden application of the brakes we pulled up at a little station for a change of engine. Then, after three minutes, we were off again, until at nine o'clock we ran slowly into the huge terminus in Paris. She had tidied her hair, washed, brushed her dress, and, as I assisted her to alight, she bore no trace of her long journey across Germany and France. Strange how well French women travel! English women are always tousled and tumbled after a night journey, but a French or Italian woman never. "_Au revoir_, m'sieur, till twelve at the Gare du Nord," she exclaimed, with a merry smile and a bow as she drove away in a cab, leaving me upon the kerb gazing after her and wondering. Was she really a governess, as she pretended? Her clothes, her manner, her smart chatter, her exquisite _chic_, all revealed good breeding and a high station in life. There was no touch of cheap shabbiness--or at least I could not detect it. A few moments before twelve she alighted at the Gare du Nord and greeted me merrily. Her face was slightly flushed, and I thought her hand trembled as I took it. But together we walked to the train, wherein I had already secured seats and places in the _wagon-restaurant_. The railway officials, the controller of the train, the chief of the restaurant, and other officials, recognising me, saluted, whereupon she said: "You seem very well known in Paris, m'sieur." "I'm a constant traveller," I replied, with a laugh. "A little too constant, perhaps. One gets wearied with such continual travel as I am forced to undertake. I never know to-morrow where I may be, and I move swiftly from one capital to another, never spending more than a day or two in the same place." "But it must be very pleasant to travel so much," she declared. "I would love to be able to do so. I'm passionately fond of constant change." Together we travelled to Calais, crossed to Dover, and that same evening alighted at Victoria.