From that night, until the day of the tragedy, she had not seen him. Indeed, she had made up her mind never to do so. Yet he had persuaded her to meet him at Mundesley, and she had consented, even though she knew what risk of detection by Ralph she must run. Was it possible that Ralph knew? The thought held her breathless. Ralph Ansell loved her. He had sworn many times that no other man should love her. What if Dick's death had been due to Ralph's fierce jealousy! The very suspicion staggered her. Again she sank upon her little white bed, gripping the coverlet in her nervous fingers and burying her face in the pillow. She examined her own heart, analysing her feelings as only a woman can analyse them. Yes. She loved Ralph Ansell--loved him sincerely and well. Eighteen months ago he had casually entered the little restaurant one evening and ordered some supper from Pierre, the shabby, bald-headed waiter, who had been for so many years in her father's service. At that moment Jean--who was employed in the daytime at the Maison Collette, the well-known milliners in Conduit Street--happened to be in the cash-desk of her father's little establishment where one-and-sixpenny four-course luncheons and two-shilling six-course dinners were served. From behind the brass grille she had gazed out upon the lonely, good-looking, well-dressed young fellow whom she saw was very nervous and agitated. Their eyes met, when he had instantly become calm, and had smiled at her. He came the next night and the next, with eyes only for her, until he summed up courage to speak to her, with the result that they had become acquainted. A young man of French birth, though his father had been an American domiciled in Paris, he was possessed of independent means, and lived in a cosy little bachelor flat half-way up Shaftesbury Avenue on the right-hand side. Far more French than English, in spite of his English name, he quickly introduced himself into the good graces of Jean's father--the short, dapper old _restaurateur_, Louis Libert, a Provencal from the remote little town of Aix, a Frenchman whom many years' residence in London had failed to anglicise. For nearly twenty years old Louis Libert had kept the Restaurant Provence, in Oxford Street, yet Mme. Libert, on account of the English climate, had preferred to live with her mother in Paris, and for fully half the period had had her daughter Jean with her. In consequence, Jean, though she spoke English well, was, nevertheless, a true Parisienne. Since her mother's death, four years previously, she had lived in London, and was at present engaged as modiste at the Maison Collette, where many of the "creations" of that world-famous house were due to her own artistic taste and originality.