"No doubt it does," murmured the sufferer, recovering breath, and correctly attributing the mingled taste of old boots and public-houses, that characterized the special tea, to the probability of the kettle having had no lid on and a strong spirit flare under it. "Poor dear; you must have been dying for a cup!" her tormentor murmured, with relentless benignity. "From a cup," the victim thought; but by degrees she gallantly swallowed the whole dose, finding it impossible to evade the pleased and compassionate eyes bent so persistently upon her. "How odd that we should have been coming to the very same house all the time!" Ermengarde said, wearily drawing a lamp-blacked hand across her still aching forehead, and sinking upon the nearest seat, when the tea-drinking was over. "Ah, yes," with a little hesitation. "And chance upon rooms adjoining, too!" "Very odd." "How glad I am it's you, and not that dreadful Anarchist, Miss--ah----" "My name is Somers--Agatha Somers," she said quickly, with a flush, not unnoticed. "Only think, if the wretch were to come back? Do you think he will?" suddenly, with a keen look. "How can I possibly guess?" she replied, with the stone blank expression noticed in the train. "Strange that he should have come up here for a single night, instead of going to one of the hotels in the town." "Did he? Perhaps he thought this dull. It is a little--secluded." "If ever I saw guilt written on a human face," thought Ermengarde, her suspicions all awake again, in a moment of sudden repulsion. "Well," she added, rising to go, "au revoir till dinner. But I must give you one piece of advice, Miss Somers," she added, turning back and sitting on the edge of the bed, her eye chancing to fall on an open letter that had slipped from a hand-bag on the bed--a strange letter, written in what was no doubt cipher, all dots and dashes and lines and bars, with little explosions here and there. "Don't say anything not meant to meet the ear of the public on the path outside the straw shelter. I'll tell you what I heard this afternoon. As you can't possibly know the people, it can't matter; it is not tale-telling. And I dare say that poor boy has a mother," she sighed, at the close of her tale, "who little knows what harpies are preying upon him. By the way," she added, "do you remember seeing a tall, cheery-looking English lad at Monte Carlo Station yesterday? It was that very boy." The woman of mystery, in the act of raising the lid of a trunk before which she was kneeling, let it fall with a crash that drew a faint sudden sound of pain from her. "It was the lock," she faltered, rising to her feet, and leaning against the tall French window frame, rather pale and holding her hand. "Oh, not really hurt; it only smarts for the moment. But what were you saying? I beg pardon. You recognized a friend at Monte Carlo Station yesterday? How observant you are, dear Mrs. Allonby! And one English boy is so like another."