"She will not be overpowered by incense in Paris nowadays. She is more likely to be offended by a new Age of Reason. However, if you think you can do without her--" "I'm sure I can. We shall not be visiting, I suppose?" "Hardly, I think. It is the dullest of dull seasons in Paris just now, and I had never a large visiting acquaintance in that city. I was too busy a man to go into society." "You must have been a stoic to resist the temptations of Parisian society--the writers, the painters, singers, actors--all that is foremost and brightest in the intellectual world." "There are circles and circles in Paris, as well as in London. I have been in Parisian assemblies that were eminently dull," said Wyllard. They started from Penmorval after breakfast next morning, and were seated in the Dover mail at eight o'clock in the evening, after dining at the Grand Hotel. Dora was in excellent spirits. Change of scene had a brightening effect upon her mind, and she was very happy in the idea of Hilda and Bothwell's happiness. She had handed her cousin a cheque for seven hundred pounds, with which he was to open an account at the local bank. And then he had only to wait for Hilda to approve his choice, before he set to work with bricklayers and carpenters at improving a cottage into an Elizabethan Grange. That was his idea. "We will have an Elizabethan Grange furnished with real Chippendale," he said. "Incongruous, but charming." "Then be sure that very few of your windows are made to open," said Dora, laughing at his ardour, "if you want to be truly Elizabethan." "Every casement shall open to its uttermost width--every corner of the house shall be steeped in light and air," protested Bothwell. And now Dora Wyllard was reclining in her corner of the railway compartment, speeding towards Dover through the gray autumn night, by Kentish hayfields and stubble, and across the gentle undulations of a Kentish landscape, so different from the bold hills and deep gorges of her native Cornwall. There was a reading-lamp hanging on Mrs. Wyllard's side of the carriage, and she had the October Quarterlies and a heap of papers to beguile the journey. Among the papers, was the _Times_ supplement, which she opened for the first time to look at the births, marriages, and deaths. Mr. Wyllard had read the other part of the paper before they reached Paddington, but he had not looked at the supplement. While Dora was looking down the births, marriages, and deaths in a casual way, her eye was suddenly caught by an advertisement at the top of the second column. "The person who was to have met Léonie Lemarque at Charing Cross Station on the morning of July 5th last is earnestly requested to communicate immediately with Messrs. Distin & Son, Solicitors, Furnival's Inn." "How strange!" exclaimed Dora; and then she read the advertisement to her husband, who was sitting in an opposite corner, with closed eyes, as if half-asleep. He started at the sound of her voice.