"Only a change of linen in a handbag." "How did she travel?" "She went from the Station du Nord at eight o'clock. I walked to the station with her, poor child. We were both very sad, and very tired. She was to cross from Calais to Dover in the night, and she would arrive in London early next morning. She promised me to write on the day of her arrival. I told her that I thought it was a dangerous thing for a young girl to go alone to meet a stranger, a man whose face she had never seen. She said her grandmother had told her that he was a good and honourable man, who had befriended her in her poverty, and she (Léonie) was to trust him. She begged me not to ask her any questions. Her grandmother had warned her to say nothing until after she had arrived in England, when she was to write to me and tell me of her new home. When I pressed her to give me her confidence, she began to cry; but I managed to find out that she was going to London with the idea of being placed in some rich and aristocratic family, where she would be a companion to the children and teach them her own language. She was not accomplished enough to be a governess of a superior kind." "How did she get the money for her journey?" "Her grandmother gave it her on her death-bed; but as there had been hardly any money in the house for the last week of Madame Lemarque's illness, I concluded that this money had been sent from the person in England in reply to an application from Madame Lemarque." "Did you post any letter addressed to England during your friend's illness?" "I did not; but Léonie may have done so. She went out every day upon some errand or other. And now, Monsieur, pray tell me how you came to know all about Léonie, and if you have any bad news for me." "Alas, Mademoiselle, I have the worst possible news. Your young friend is dead." "Dead! And there was no one to tell me. The gentleman who was to befriend her, to whom she went as to a protector and benefactor, he did not even take the trouble to tell me her fate." "She may never have found him, poor child. She may have been lured away from her destination and from London by a villain. She met her death more than two hundred miles from London. She fell from a railway-bridge, and was killed instantly; but whether that death was an accident or a murder, no one yet knows, except the Great Judge of all human actions." "You believe it was----" "Murder. I am here to discover the motive of that crime." CHAPTER II. A STUDENT OF MEN AND WOMEN. There was a silence of some minutes, during which Mademoiselle Beauville wept quietly. And then Heathcote and the ex-police-officer rose to take leave. "I thank you sincerely, Mademoiselle, for having given me all the information in your power to give, and I must beg you to accept some small compensation for the time I have wasted," said Mr. Heathcote, slipping a couple of twenty-franc pieces into the dressmaker's hand.