The boat was rolling and pitching a good deal, and I remember hearing someone say that we were lying off Dieppe until the sea should to some extent subside. Then, all at once, a thought came to me which made me feel sick and faint. While I had been unconscious, had the fact been discovered that I too was disguised? I looked up with a feeling of terror, but the expression upon the faces of the ship's doctor and of the stewardess revealed nothing, and my mind grew more at ease when I noticed that the few people standing about were strangers to me. I saw nothing of any member of the group of criminals I now felt literally afraid to meet until the Paris express was about to start. More than once I had felt tempted to alter my plans by not going to Paris, or by returning to England by the next boat. But then Dulcie had risen into the vision of my imagination and I had felt I could not leave her alone with such a gang of scoundrels—I might be leaving her to her fate were I to desert her now. No, I had started upon this dangerous adventure, and at all costs I must go through with it, even though I no longer had poor Preston to advise me. "Ah, Sir Aubrey, we have been looking for you." I turned sharply, to find at my elbow Connie Stapleton and Doris Lorrimer. The latter stood beside her friend, calm, subdued; Mrs. Stapleton was in her usual high spirits, and greeted me with an effusive hand-shake. "Hughie told us you were on board," she said, "and he says you are going to stay at our hotel. I am so pleased. Now, you must dine with us to-night—no, I won't take a refusal," she added quickly, as I was about to make some excuse. "We shall be such a cheery party—just the kind of party I know you love." There was no way of escape, at any rate for the moment. Later I must see what could be done. My desire now was to keep, so to speak, in touch with the gang, and to watch in particular Dulcie's movements, yet to associate on terms of intimacy with these people as little as possible. We had not been long in the train, on our way to Paris, when someone—it was Dulcie who first spoke of it, I think—broached the subject which had created so much excitement on board—the suicide of the disguised stranger. "I wonder if his act had any bearing upon this robbery which is said to have been committed on board between Newhaven and Dieppe," a man whom I remembered meeting at Connie Stapleton's dinner party, presently observed—I suddenly remembered that his name was Wollaston. "Robbery?" I exclaimed. "I have heard nothing about it. What was stolen? and who was it stolen from?"