ntentions--not even her father, who was not in the hotel when she left.
She had scribbled a brief note to him to expect her back in a day or
two, and had posted this at Dover. The steamer was the Marie Henriette,
a large and luxurious boat, whose state-rooms on deck vie with the
glories of the Cunard and White Star liners. One of these state-rooms,
the best, was evidently occupied, for every curtain of its windows was
carefully drawn. Nella did not hope that the Baroness was on board; it
was quite possible for the Baroness to have caught the eight o'clock
steamer, and it was also possible for the Baroness not to have gone
to Ostend at all, but to some other place in an entirely different
direction. Nevertheless, Nella had a faint hope that the lady who called
herself Zerlinski might be in that curtained stateroom, and throughout
the smooth moonlit voyage she never once relaxed her observation of its
doors and its windows.

The Maria Henriette arrived in Ostend Harbour punctually at 2 a.m. in
the morning. There was the usual heterogeneous, gesticulating crowd on
the quay.

Nella kept her post near the door of the state-room, and at length she
was rewarded by seeing it open. Four middle-aged Englishmen issued from
it. From a glimpse of the interior Nella saw that they had spent the
voyage in card-playing.

It would not be too much to say that she was distinctly annoyed. She
pretended to be annoyed with circumstances, but really she was annoyed
with Nella Racksole. At two in the morning, without luggage, without any
companionship, and without a plan of campaign, she found herself in
a strange foreign port--a port of evil repute, possessing some of the
worst-managed hotels in Europe. She strolled on the quay for a few
minutes, and then she saw the smoke of another steamer in the offing.
She inquired from an official what that steamer might be, and was told
that it was the eight o'clock from Dover, which had broken down, put
into Calais for some slight necessary repairs, and was arriving at its
destination nearly four hours late. Her mercurial spirits rose again. A
minute ago she was regarding herself as no better than a ninny engaged
in a wild-goose chase. Now she felt that after all she had been very
sagacious and cunning. She was morally sure that she would find the
Zerlinski woman on this second steamer, and she took all the credit to
herself in advance. Such is human nature.

The steamer seemed interminably slow in