"Milady was toujours _très souffrante_. It would be ten days, at the least, before Milady could receive, even a very old friend, like Monsieur." The letter reached Long Barton between the Guardian and a catalogue of Some Rare Books. The Reverend Cecil read it four times. He was trying to be just. At first he thought he would write "No" and tell Betty years later. But the young man had seen the error of his ways. And £1,700 a year!-- The surprise visit with which the Reverend Cecil had always intended to charm his step-daughter suddenly found its date quite definitely fixed. This could not be written. He must go to the child and break it to her very gently, very tenderly--find out quite delicately and cleverly exactly what her real feelings were. Girls were so shy about those things. Miss Julia Desmond had wired him from Suez that she would be in Paris next week--had astonishingly asked him to meet her there. "Paris next Tuesday Gare St. Lazare 6:45. Come and see Betty via Dieppe," had been her odd message. He had not meant to go--not next Tuesday. He was afraid of Miss Julia Desmond. He would rather have his Lizzie all to himself. But now-- He wrote a cablegram to Miss Julia Desmond: "Care Captain S.S. Urania, Brindisi: Will meet you in Paris." Then he thought that this might seem to the telegraph people not quite nice, so he changed it to: "Going to see Lizzie Tuesday." The fates that had slept so long were indeed waking up and beginning to take notice of Betty. Destiny, like the most attractive of the porters at the Gare de Lyon, "_s'occupait d'elle_." CHAPTER XXIV. THE CONFESSIONAL. The concierge sat at her window under the arch of the porte-cochère at 57 Boulevard Montparnasse. She sat gazing across its black shade to the sunny street. She was thinking. The last twenty-four hours had given food for thought. The trams passed and repassed, people in carriages, people on foot--the usual crowd--not interesting. But the open carriage suddenly drawn up at the other side of the broad pavement was interesting, very. For it contained the lady who had given the 100 francs, and had promised another fifty on the first of the month. She had never come with that fifty, and the concierge having given up all hope of seeing her again, had acted accordingly. Lady St. Craye, pale as the laces of her sea-green cambric gown, came slowly up the cobble-paved way and halted at the window. "Good morning, Madame," she said. "I bring you the little present." The concierge was genuinely annoyed. Why had she not waited a little longer? Still, all was not yet lost. "Come in, Madame," she said. "Madame has the air very fatigued." "I have been very ill," said Lady St. Craye. "If Madame will give herself the trouble to go round by the other door--" The concierge went round and met her visitor in the hall, and brought her into the closely furnished little room with the high wooden bed, the round table, the rack for letters, and the big lamp.