When the maid brought my hot water next morning she told me that Mrs Slade had announced her intention to leave at eleven o'clock; therefore I packed, and leaving slightly earlier, was enabled to follow her cab to Victoria Station, whence she travelled to Brighton, putting up at the _Metropole_. I pursued similar tactics to those I had adopted in London, staying in the same hotel and yet contriving never to be seen by her. She went out but seldom. Sometimes in the morning she would stroll beneath her pale mauve sunshade along the King's Road, or at evening take an airing on the pier, but she apparently lived an aimless life, spending her time in reading novels in her own apartment. As far as I could learn, she met no one there, and only appeared to be killing time and waiting. After a fortnight she moved along to Hastings, thence to Ilfracombe, and afterwards to Hull. We arrived at the _North-Eastern Hotel_ at Hull one evening towards the end of August, having travelled by the express from London. Through nearly a month I had kept close watch upon her, yet none of her movements had been in the least suspicious. She lived well, always having her own sitting-room, although she had no maid. Those days of watchfulness were full of anxiety, and I had to resort to all sorts of ingenious devices to prevent observation and recognition. The station hotel at Hull is comfortable, but by no means a gay place of residence, and for several days I wondered what might be her object in visiting that Yorkshire port. The room adjoining her sitting-room on the second floor became vacant on the third day after our arrival, and I fortunately succeeded in obtaining it. She entertained no suspicion that I was following her, although I dogged her movements everywhere. In Hull she only went out twice, once to a stationer's in Whitefriar-gate, and on the other occasion to the telegraph office. As at Brighton and Ilfracombe, she still appeared to be waiting in patience for the arrival of some one whom she expected. About nine o'clock one evening, after she had remained nearly a week in Hull, always taking her meals in her own room and passing her time in reading, I had returned from the coffee-room, and was about to go forth for a stroll, when suddenly I heard a waiter rap at her door and announce a visitor. A locked door separated her sitting-room from mine, and standing by it, listening eagerly, I heard the sound of rustling paper, the hurried closing of a box, and her permission to show the visitor up. A few minutes passed in silence. Then I heard some one enter, and a man's voice exclaimed with a distinctly foreign accent-- "Ah, my dear Edna! At last! I feared that you would have left before my arrival." "I expected you days ago," she answered, and I knew from the man's sigh that he had sunk wearily into a chair. "I was delayed," he explained. "I had a narrow escape. Oustromoff has guessed the truth."