coming into harbour. Nella
walked on the Digue for a few minutes to watch it the better. The town
was silent and almost deserted. It had a false and sinister aspect. She
remembered tales which she had heard of this glittering resort, which
in the season holds more scoundrels than any place in Europe, save only
Monte Carlo. She remembered that the gilded adventures of every nation
under the sun forgathered there either for business or pleasure, and
that some of the most wonderful crimes of the latter half of the century
had been schemed and matured in that haunt of cosmopolitan iniquity.

When the second steamer arrived Nella stood at the end of the gangway,
close to the ticket-collector. The first person to step on shore
was--not the Baroness Zerlinski, but Miss Spencer herself! Nella turned
aside instantly, hiding her face, and Miss Spencer, carrying a small
bag, hurried with assured footsteps to the Custom House. It seemed as
if she knew the port of Ostend fairly well. The moon shone like day,
and Nella had full opportunity to observe her quarry. She could see now
quite plainly that the Baroness Zerlinski had been only Miss Spencer in
disguise. There was the same gait, the same movement of the head and of
the hips; the white hair was easily to be accounted for by a wig, and
the wrinkles by a paint brush and some grease paints. Miss Spencer,
whose hair was now its old accustomed yellow, got through the Custom
House without difficulty, and Nella saw her call a closed carriage and
say something to the driver. The vehicle drove off. Nella jumped into
the next carriage--an open one--that came up.

'Follow that carriage,' she said succinctly to the driver in French.

'Bien, madame!' The driver whipped up his horse, and the animal shot
forward with a terrific clatter over the cobbles. It appeared that this
driver was quite accustomed to following other carriages.

'Now I am fairly in for it!' said Nella to herself. She laughed
unsteadily, but her heart was beating with an extraordinary thump.

For some time the pursued vehicle kept well in front. It crossed the
town nearly from end to end, and plunged into a maze of small streets
far on the south side of the Kursaal. Then gradually Nella's equipage
began to overtake it. The first carriage stopped with a jerk before a
tall dark house, and Miss Spencer emerged. Nella called to her driver to
stop, but he, determined to be in at the death, was engaged in
whipping his horse,