They breakfasted _tête-à-tête_, after which she paid her bill, and at ten o’clock left him standing upon the platform to idle away three hours wandering about the crowded Glasgow streets before his departure at one o’clock. Next morning Ena Pollen took her déjeuner at half-past eleven in the elegant table d’hôte room of the aristocratic Hôtel Bristol, in Paris, a big white salon which overlooks the Place Vendôme. Afterwards she took a taxi to the Gare de Lyon, whence she travelled to Melun, thirty miles distant—that town from which come the Brie cheeses. On arrival, she inquired for the Boulevard Victor Hugo, and an open cab drove her away across the little island in the Seine, past the old church of St. Aspais, to a point where, in the boulevard, stood a monument to the great savant, Pasteur. The cab pulled up opposite the monument, where, alighting, Ena found herself before a large four-storied house, the ground floor of which was occupied by a tobacconist and a shop which sold comestibles. Of the old bespectacled concierge who was cobbling boots in the entrance she inquired for Madame Ténot, and his gruff reply was: "Au troisième, à gauche." So, mounting the stone steps, she found the left-hand door on the third floor, and rang the bell. The door opened, and the good-looking young French girl, who had been her maid for six months at Brighton, confronted her. "Well, Céline!" exclaimed Ena merrily in French. "You didn’t expect to see me—did you?" The girl stood aghast and open-mouthed. "_Dieu_! Madame!" she gasped. "I—I certainly did not!" "Well, I chanced to be passing through Melun, and I thought I would call upon you." The girl stood in the doorway, apparently disinclined to invite her late mistress into the small flat which she and her mother, the widow of the local postmaster, occupied. "I wrote to you, Madame, two months ago—but you never replied!" "I have never had any letter from you, Céline," Ena declared. "But may I not come in for a moment to have a chat with you? Ah! but perhaps you have visitors?" "No, Madame," was her reply; "I am alone. My mother went to my aunt’s, at Provins, this morning." "Good! Then I may come in?" "If Madame wishes," she said, still with some reluctance, and led the way to a small, rather sparsely-furnished salon, which overlooked the cobbled street below. "I have been staying a few days at Marlotte, and am now on my way back to Paris," said her former mistress, seating herself in a chair. "Besides, I wanted particularly to see you, Céline, for several reasons. I feel somehow that—well, that I have not treated you as I really ought to have done. I dismissed you abruptly after poor Mr. Martin’s death. But I was so very upset—I was not actually myself. I know I ought not to have done what I did. Please forgive me."