After settling his hat to his satisfaction, and looking at himself in the glass with great complacency, Tom Durham strolled from the room, leaving the door wide open behind him. He nodded familiarly to a waiter whom he passed in the passage, but who, instead of returning the salutation, stared at him in wrathful wonder--they were unaccustomed to such gentry at Radley's--and then he passed into the street. Looking leisurely around him, he made his way back again to the promenade on which he had held his conversation with Alice Claxton, and there, standing by one of the cannon, was another woman, apparently awaiting his arrival. A woman about thirty years of age, with swarthy complexion, bright beady black eyes, and dull blue-black hair. French, without doubt. French in the fashion of her inexpensive garments and the manner in which they were put on; undeniably French in her boots and gloves, in her gait, in the gesture and recognition which she made when she saw Tom Durham approaching her. That estimable gentleman, apparently, was displeased at this gesture, for he frowned when he saw it, and when he arrived at the woman's side, he said, "Don't be so infernally demonstrative, Pauline; I have told you of that before." "Mais, should I stand like a stone or stock when you come before me?" said the woman, with the slightest trace of a foreign accent. "I was longing to see you, and you came. Is it, then, astonishing--" "No, all right; don't jaw," said Tom Durham shortly. "Only, in our position it is not advisable to attract more notice than necessary. Well, here you are." "Yes, I am here." "All goes well; I told you there was an old gentleman--Claxton by name--connected with Calverley's firm, for which I'm supposed to be going out as agent, from whom I could get a sum of money, and I have got it--he sent it to me." "Ah, ah, he sent it to you?" "Yes, by--by a messenger whom he could trust; and this is not by any means the last that I shall have from him. He thinks I am off for the East, and that he is rid of me; but as soon as this sum is spent, he shall know the difference." "You have made the arrangements about that?" "I have arranged everything. I saw the pilot; he told me it was blowing hard outside, and that he shall pass the night off the Hurst. I have been on board, and seen exactly how best to do what I intend; and now there is nothing left but to give you your instructions." "Stay," said the woman, laying her hand on his breast, and looking earnestly into his face. "You are certain you run no risk; you are certain that--"