"After a while"--he began once more, in a slow, dull voice--"the wind came up, and we hoisted sail. We went on our way rapidly, and by the middle of the following day we arrived at Leghorn. I paid the men off and dismissed them. I myself came back to London immediately, over the Alps, through Germany. I thought it best to avoid Marseilles. I do not know what the men did with themselves; but I think that they would have made some trouble for me if I had not hurried away. Black Bill said as much when I was paying them. He said that when he made the bargain he thought it was only some 'bloody insurance business,' and, if he had known what it was to have been, he would have made a different bargain. As it was, he swore I ought to double the amount I had promised. I refused, and we parted with some high words--he vowing vengeance, and I saying nothing." [Illustration: "Black Bill Has Kept On My Track."] "Ah!" said Hilda, who had succeeded in recovering something of her ordinary calm, "that was foolish in you--you ought to have satisfied their demands." "I have thought so since." "They may create trouble. You should have stopped their mouths." "That is the very thing I wished to do; but I was afraid of being too lavish, for fear that they would suspect the importance of the thing. I thought if I appeared mean and stingy and poor they might conclude that I was some very ordinary person, and that the affair was of a very ordinary kind--concerning very common people. If they suspected the true nature of the case they would be sure to inform the police. As it is, they will hold their tongues; or, at the worst, they will try and track me." "Track you?" said Hilda, who was struck by something in Gualtier's tone. "Yes; the fact is--I suppose I ought to tell you--I have been tracked all the way from Leghorn." "By whom?" "Black Bill--I don't know how he managed it, but he has certainly kept on my track. I saw him at Brieg, in Switzerland, first; next I saw him in the railway station at Strasbourg; and yesterday I saw him in London, standing opposite the door of my lodgings, as I was leaving for this place." "That looks bad," said Hilda, seriously. "He is determined to find out what this business is, and so he watches me. He doesn't threaten, he doesn't demand money--he is simply watching. His game is a deep one." "Do you suppose that the others are with him?" "Not at all. I think he is trying to work this up for himself." "It is bad," said Hilda. "How do you know that he is not in this village?" "As to that, it is quite impossible--and I never expect to see him again, in fact." "Why not?" "Because I have thrown him off the track completely. While I was going straight to London it was easy for him to follow--especially as I did not care to dodge him on the continent; but now, if he ever catches sight of me again he is much deeper than I take him to be." "But perhaps he has followed you here."