imed. "To that money a right I have!"

They were facing each other in the low-ceilinged, dim, badly-lit
bedroom. The stranger grew very red.

"Look here!" he said conciliatingly; he was really in a great hurry to
get away. "I promise to send you this money to-night, Mrs. Bauer. You
can trust me. I have not got it on me, truly. You may search me if you
like." He smiled a little nervously, and advancing towards her opened
his big motor coat.

Anna shrank back. "You truly send it will?" she asked doubtfully.

"I will send it to Hegner for you. Nay, more---- I will give you a piece
of paper, and then Hegner will pay you at once." He tore a page out of
his pocket-book, and scribbled on it a few words.

She took the bit of paper, folded it, and put it in her purse.

As they were conveying the third oddly-shaped parcel through the
kitchen, she said conciliatingly, "Curious it is to have charge of
luggage so long and not exactly what it is to know!"

He made no answer to this remark. But suddenly, in a startled,
suppressed whisper, he exclaimed, "_Who's that?_"

Anna looked round. "Eh?" she said.

"You told me there was no one in the house, but someone has just come
out of the gate, and is standing by my motor!" He added sternly, "Was
heisst das?" (What does this mean?)

Anna hurried to the window and looked through the muslin curtain hanging
in front of it. Yes, the stranger had spoken truly. There was Mr.
Hayley, standing between the little motor-car and the back door.

"Do not yourself worry," she said quickly. "It is only a gentleman who
luncheon here has eaten. Go out and explain to him everything I will."

But the man had turned a greenish-white colour. "How d'you mean
'explain'?" he said roughly, in English.

"Explain that they are things of mine--luggage--that taking away you
are," said Anna.

The old woman could not imagine why the stranger showed such agitation.
Mr. Hayley had no kind of right to interfere with her and her concerns,
and she had no fear that he would do so.

"If you are so sure you can make it all right," the man whispered low in
German, "I will leave the house by some other way--there is surely some
back way of leaving the house? I will walk away, and stop at Hegner's
till I know the coast is clear."

"There is no back way out," whispered Anna, also in German. She was
beginning to feel vaguely alarmed. "But no one can stop you. Walk
straight out, while I stay and explain. I can make