Domini made no reply. She was surprised by this piece of information. There was something, she thought, essentially un-English about the stranger. He was certainly not dressed by an English tailor. But it was not only that which had caused her mistake. His whole air and look, his manner of holding himself, of sitting, of walking--yes, especially of walking--were surely foreign. Yet, when she came to think about it, she could not say that they were characteristic of any other country. Idly she had said to herself that the stranger might be an Austrian or a Russian. But she had been thinking of his colouring. It happened that two _attaches_ of those two nations, whom she had met frequently in London, had hair of that shade of rather warm brown. “He does not look like an Englishman,” she said presently. “He can talk in French and in Arabic, but Hadj says he is English.” “How should Hadj know?” “Because he has the eyes of the jackal, and has been with many English. We are getting near to the Catholic church, Madame. You will see it through the trees. And there is Monsieur the Cure coming towards us. He is coming from his house, which is near the hotel.” At some distance in the twilight of the tunnel Domini saw a black figure in a soutane walking very slowly towards them. The stranger, who had been covering the ground rapidly with his curious, shuffling stride, was much nearer to it than they were, and, if he kept on at his present pace, would soon pass it. But suddenly Domini saw him pause and hesitate. He bent down and seemed to be doing something to his boot. Hadj dropped the green bag, and was evidently about to kneel down, and assist him when he lifted himself up abruptly and looked before him, as if at the priest who was approaching, then turned sharply to the right into a path which led out of the garden to the arcades of the Rue Berthe. Hadj followed, gesticulating frantically, and volubly explaining that the hotel was in the opposite direction. But the stranger did not stop. He only glanced swiftly back over his shoulder once, and then continued on his way. “What a funny man that is!” said Batouch. “What does he want to do?” Domini did not answer him, for the priest was just passing them, and she saw the church to the left among the trees. It was a plain, unpretending building, with a white wooden door set in an arch. Above the arch were a small cross, two windows with rounded tops, a clock, and a white tower with a pink roof. She looked at it, and at the priest, whose face was dark and meditative, with lustrous, but sad, brown eyes. Yet she thought of the stranger. Her attention was beginning to be strongly fixed upon the unknown man. His appearance and manner were so unusual that it was impossible not to notice him. “There is the hotel, Madame!” said Batouch.