She was glad of the fresh sea-breath and the beauty of the bay's broad sweep between the purple headland of Bordighera and the craggy bluffs above Monte Carlo. And when they turned into the Gardens under the tall eucalyptus, the appearance of the woman of mystery coming down an avenue of palms was a great relief. But a flush on Agatha's cheek and a vision of the Spaniard rapidly disappearing under palms in the opposite direction, filled her with misgiving again. What could all this atmosphere of intrigue and mystification portend? Certainly nothing praiseworthy. "It was so hot and dusty on the stand," Agatha said, to explain her sudden disappearance, upon which Dorris alone had commented. That evening, when they had gone to their rooms for the night, Ermengarde knocked at Agatha's door and handed her the little box containing the chain. "I think this must be yours, Miss Somers," she said. "_Your friend the Spaniard_ threw it, and it caught round my neck by mistake." "My friend?" she asked, confused. "Oh, you mean the Spaniard who stopped by the stand to ask the way to the sea?" "Yes, the Spaniard, not the Cyrano de Bergerac." The flush died from the woman of mystery's cheek, and the stone mask settled upon it. She returned the chain, saying coldly it could not be intended for her, and that she knew nothing about it. "The Cyrano," Ermengarde observed casually, as she turned from the door, "turned out to be the young Englishman of Monte Carlo, the same who was overheard offering money to the foreign Countess." "Did he?" she replied, without interest. "Good night, dear Mrs. Allonby. You look tired." Chapter IX The Casino Monte Carlo, justly reputed one of the loveliest spots on earth, is most magically beautiful perhaps when seen from the sea, or from the long, low, wooded headland of Cap Martin. Thence, on her first visit one golden afternoon, Ermengarde enjoyed a most poetic vision of it, never forgotten and never surpassed. She had left her party, and was basking on a shore thick set with rich-fruited, wind-stunted myrtle and rosemary bushes, the odours of which mingled with pine scents and sweet, sharp sea-breath, while she listened to the soft boom of waves plunging in white, azure-shadowed foam on the rocks at the point, where the sea is more intensely blue than anywhere else and the foam whiter, yet always with that faint azure tinge in shadow.