The sun was just dipping behind the Esterelle mountains and the Mediterranean was the colour of wine. Already the Palais du Jetée was being illuminated and outlined itself in palest gold against the painted sky above the Cimiez heights, where the olive-coloured headland hides Villefranche and the sea-girt pleasure city of Monte Carlo. The tall palms in the gardens which front the gleaming palaces of the Promenade were bronze gold in the fading light, and their fans clicked and rustled in a cool breeze which was eddying down upon the Queen of the Mediterranean from the Maritime Alps. Mary Lothian came out of the hotel. Her face was pale and very sad. She had been crying. With her was a tall, stately woman of middle-age; grey-haired, with a massive calmness and peace of feature recalling the Athena of the Louvre or one of those noble figures of the Erectheum crowning the hill of the Acropolis at Athens. She was Mrs. Julia Daly, who had been upon the Riviera for two months. Dr. Morton Sims had written to her. She had called upon Mary and the two had become fast friends. Such time as Mary could spare from the sickbed of her sister, she spent in the company of this great-souled woman from America, and now Mrs. Daly, whose stay at Nice was over, was returning to London with her friend. The open carriage drove off, by the gardens and jewellers' shops in front of the Casino and Opera House and down the Avenue de la Gare. The glittering cafés were full of people taking an apéritif before dinner. There was a sense of relaxation and repose over the pleasure city of the South, poured down upon it in a golden haze from the last level rays of the sun. Outside one of the cafés, as the carriage turned to the station, some Italians were singing "_O Soli Mio_" to the accompaniment of guitars and a harp, with mellow, passionate voices. The long green train rolled into the glass-roofed station, the brass-work of the carriage doors covered thick with oily dust from the Italian tunnels through which it had passed. The conductor of the sleeping-car portion found the two women their reserved compartment. Their luggage was already registered through to Charing Cross and they had only dressing bags with them. As the train started again Mrs. Daly pulled the sliding door into its place, the curtains over it and the windows which looked out into the corridor. Then she switched on the electric light in the roof and also the lamp which stood on a little table at the other end. "There, my dear," she said, "now we shall be quite comfortable." She sat down by Mary, took her hand in hers and kissed her.