Jeannette eyed him with sharp suspicion. "Of course, you will stay," said mademoiselle, with her little imperious air. "But I am quite well enough to go to an inn----" "There is not one within five miles, and that--well----" A little expressive wave of the small hands and a whimsical smile finished her sentence. "I do not like to trespass----" "It is not trespassing," with pretty warmth; "indeed, monsieur, you must accept of our hospitality." "Then thank you very much." "And--your luggage? Is it with friends? They will be anxious--we will send----" She was too courteous to ask with whom he was staying. Yet she wondered much, for, beyond poor cottages, there were no dwellings within many miles of Ancelles. "I am alone," he answered; "I have walked from B---- to-day." Jeannette snorted. She plainly did not believe him. B---- was thirty and more miles distant. The suspicion in her stare grew deeper. "Oh," said Stéphanie. "My luggage----" He hesitated; yet what could he do without it? "It is only a small bag--it is--er--outside your garden wall," he finished desperately. "Jeannette, please see that it is fetched at once." No faintest spark of surprise appeared in his hostess's small face. She seemed quite used to having strangers tumble over her wall into her garden, quite used to luggage being left outside the wall. The man was distinctly amused, but he was touched too. An old manservant, with a faint, indescribable old-world air, that fitted in with the château and the garden and the roses somehow, brought food to the stranger, and, after he had eaten, showed him to his room. The stranger looked round him with interest. It was a large apartment, large and bare and old--but everything at Ancelles was old. But the curtains to the bed, faded now, had once been rich and handsome. The tapestry across the door of a smaller room leading from the other, was still beautiful though worn with age. Hugh Michelhurst shivered a little as he stood there, in the dim, dark, old-world chamber. There was something pathetic in the tale it told of bygone splendour, something sad and forlorn. Then his eye fell on a bowl of vivid red roses standing on his dressing-table, and he smiled. They at least were not old. Their splendour was undimmed. There was nothing faded in their fresh, glowing beauty; and who had put them there?