'Well, no matter; she's in Paris now, and this letter is from her, and she says--let me see the place--"Yesterday, what do you think?--quite an apparition!--you shall hear. My brother Craven yesterday insisted on my accompanying him to Le Bas' shop in that odd little antique street near the Grève; it is a wonderful old curiosity shop. I forget what they call them here. When we went into this place it was very nearly deserted, and there were so many curious things to look at all about, that for a minute or two I did not observe a tall woman, in a grey silk and a black velvet mantle, and quite a nice new Parisian bonnet. You will be _charmed_, by-the-by, with the new shape--it is only out three weeks, and is quite _indescribably_ elegant, _I_ think, at least. They have them, I am sure, by this time at Molnitz's, so I need say no more. And now that I am on this subject of dress, I have got your lace; and I think you will be very ungrateful if you are not _charmed_ with it." Well, I need not read all that--here is the rest;' and she read-- '"But you'll ask about my mysterious _dame_ in the new bonnet and velvet mantle; she was sitting on a stool at the counter, not buying, but evidently selling a quantity of stones and trinkets which she had in a card-box, and the man was picking them up one by one, and, I suppose, valuing them. I was near enough to see such a darling little pearl cross, with at least half a dozen really good pearls in it, and had begun to covet them for my set, when the lady glanced over my shoulder, and she knew me--in fact, we knew one another--and who do you think she was? Well--you'll not guess in a week, and I can't wait so long; so I may as well tell you at once--she was that horrid old Mademoiselle Blassemare whom you pointed out to me at Elverston; and I never forgot her face since--nor she, it seems, mine, for she turned away very quickly, and when I next saw her, her veil was down."' 'Did not you tell me, Maud, that you had lost your pearl cross while that dreadful Madame de la Rougierre was here?' 'Yes; but--' 'I know; but what has she to do with Mademoiselle de Blassemare, you were going to say--they are one and the same person.' 'Oh, I perceive,' answered I, with that dim sense of danger and dismay with which one hears suddenly of an enemy of whom one has lost sight for a time. 'I'll write and tell Georgie to buy that cross. I wager my life it is yours,' said Lady Knollys, firmly. The servants, indeed, made no secret of their opinion of Madame de la Rougierre, and frankly charged her with a long list of larcenies. Even Anne Wixted, who had enjoyed her barren favour while the gouvernante was here, hinted privately that she had bartered a missing piece of lace belonging to me with a gipsy pedlar, for French gloves and an Irish poplin. 'And so surely as I find it is yours, I'll set the police in pursuit.' 'But you must not bring me into court,' said I, half amused and half alarmed.