"Oh! he was a rather short, podgy man, fair, with a baldish head." Was it Parham? the description suited him. "He gave no card?" "No. He met the young lady here in the hall. My idea was that his presence was very unwelcome, as she seemed in great fear lest he should return before she could get away." "Has the man left Glasgow?" "I think so. I saw him on the platform about nine, just before the Edinburgh express left. He's probably gone on there. He seemed quite a gentleman." "They appeared to be friendly?" "Perfectly. Only she evidently did not expect to meet him. She asked the name of a hotel at Fort William, and I told her to go to the Station." "Then she's there!" I exclaimed quickly. "Probably. She arrived there this morning." I tipped the man, and after idling in Glasgow some hours, left for Fort William, determined to disobey Sybil's order to go back to Newcastle. It was a long but picturesque journey. When I arrived I went at once to the hotel to inquire if Mrs Morton were there. The manageress shook her head, saying,-- "There was a Mrs Morton, a young woman like a lady's-maid, who arrived here yesterday morning, and left here last evening. A lady was awaiting her--her mistress, I think." "What was her name?" "Mrs Rumbold," was the answer, after referring to the visitors' book. "Rumbold!" The name of the secret lover. "Was she old or young?" "Elderly, with grey hair. A rather stiff, formal kind of person." "Where have they gone?" "I heard Mrs Rumbold say that she wanted to go to Oban. So perhaps they've gone there." There was a boat down to Oban in three hours' time, therefore I took it, passed down the beautiful Loch and by the island of Lismore, places too well known to the traveller in Scotland to need any description, and that same evening found myself in Oban, the Charing Cross of the Highlands. I had been there several times before, and always stayed at the Great Western. Therefore I took the hotel omnibus, and on alighting asked if a Mrs Rumbold was staying there. The reply was a negative one, therefore I went round to several other hotels, finding at last that she and "her maid" had taken a room at the Alexandra that morning, but had suddenly changed their plans, and had left at two o'clock by train for the south, but whether for Glasgow or Edinburgh was not known. I therefore lost track of them. Sybil had apparently successfully escaped from her male visitor at Glasgow, while at the same time Mrs Rumbold--probably the mother of the man she loved in secret--had awaited her up at Fort William. For what reason? Why was she now masquerading as maid of the mother of her lover? Again, if her visitor in Glasgow was really Parham, he must have very quickly obtained knowledge of her whereabouts, for only a few days before I had watched him arrange that ingenious plot against her in Dean's Yard--a plot which would have no doubt been carried into execution if Sybil had been present.