"I find with satisfaction that although six years have gone by you have not forgotten your promise made to me," she said, her large serious eyes fixed upon mine. "I gave you that promise in exchange for my life," I remarked, as, at her suggestion, we turned and walked out of the station. "And as acknowledgement of the service you rendered by preserving secret your knowledge of the events of that terrible night I was enabled to render you a small service in return," she said. "Your sight was restored to you." "For that, how can I sufficiently thank you?" I exclaimed. "I owe it all to you, and rest assured that, although we have not met until this evening, I have never forgotten--nor shall I ever forget." She smiled pleasantly, while I strolled slowly at her side across the station-yard. To me those moments were like a dream. Edna, the woman who had hitherto been but a strange ghost of the past, was now actually beside me in the flesh. "I have received other notes making appointments--the last, I think, a couple of years ago," I observed after a pause. "Did you not meet me then?" She glanced at me with a puzzled expression. Of course she knew nothing of those lost years of my life. "Meet you?" she repeated. "Certainly not." "Who met me, then?" "I really don't know," she answered. "This is the first time I have approached you, and I only come to you now in order to ask you to grant me a favour--a very great favour." "A favour! What is it?" "I cannot explain here, in the street," she said quickly. "If you will come to my hotel I will place the facts before you." "Where are you staying?" "At the _Bath Hotel_, in Arlington Street." I knew the place well. It stood at the corner of Arlington Street and Piccadilly, and was an eminently respectable, old-fashioned place, patronised by a high-class clientele. "And you are alone?" I inquired, thinking it strange that she should thus ask me to her hotel. "Of course. I have come to London expressly to see you," she responded. "I went down to Budleigh-Salterton two days ago, but I ascertained at Denbury that you had left suddenly." "Whom did you see there?" I inquired, much interested. "Your butler. He told me some absurd story, how that you had become temporarily irresponsible for your actions, and had disappeared, leaving no address." "And you came to London?" "Of course." "And how did you find out where I was hidden, and my assumed name?" She smiled mysteriously. "It was easy enough, I assure you. A man of your influence in the City, and as well known as you are, has considerable difficulty in effectively concealing his identity." "But who told you where I was staying?" I demanded. "Nobody. I discovered it for myself." "And yet the police have been searching for me everywhere, and have not yet discovered me!" I remarked, surprised. "The police have one method," she said. "I have an entirely different one."