e tore carefully up into small pieces and destroyed. He did
not even glance towards Peter, but Peter understood very well what had
happened. He had been about to send him a message, but had found
the Baroness watching. Peter was fully awake now. His faint sense of
suspicion had deepened into a positive foreboding. He had a reckless
desire to stop the car, to descend upon the road and let the secrets of
Bernadine go where they would. Then his natural love of adventure blazed
up once more. His moment of weakness had passed. The thrill was in his
blood, his nerves were tightened. He was ready for what might come,
seemingly still half asleep, yet, indeed, with every sense of intuition
and observation keenly alert.

Sogrange leaned over from his place.

"It is a lonely country, this, into which we are coming, madame," he
remarked.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Indeed, it is not so lonely here as you will think it when we arrive
at our destination," she replied. "There are houses here, but they are
hidden by the trees. There are no houses near us."

She rubbed the pane with her hand.

"We are, I believe, very nearly there," she said. "This is the nearest
village. Afterwards, we just climb a hill and about half a mile along
the top of it is the High House."

"And the name of the village," Sogrange inquired.

"St Mary's," she told him, "In the summer people call it beautiful
around here. To me it is the most melancholy spot I ever saw. There
is so much rain, and one hears the drip, drip in the trees all the day
long. Alone I could not bear it. To-morrow or the next day I shall pack
up my belongings and come to London. I am, unfortunately," she added,
with a little sigh, "very, very poor, but it is my hope that you may
find the papers, of which I have spoken to you, valuable."

Sogrange smiled faintly. Peter and he could scarcely forbear to exchange
a single glance. The woman's candor was almost brutal. She read their
thoughts.

"We ascend the hill," she continued. "We draw now very near to the end
of our journey. There is still one thing I would say to you. Do not
think too badly of me for what I am about to do. To Bernadine, while he
lived, I was faithful. Many a time I could have told you of his plans
and demanded a great sum of money, and you would have given it me
willingly, but my lips were sealed because, in a way, I loved him. While
he lived I gave him what I owed. To-day he is dead, and, whatever I do,
it