was flushed.

'Come in and see me,' said Ladywell quickly, before quite withdrawing his
head. 'I am staying in this room.'

'I will,' said Neigh; and taking his hat he left Ethelberta's apartment
forthwith.

On entering the quarters of his friend he found him seated at a table
whereon writing materials were strewn. They shook hands in silence, but
the meaning in their looks was enough.

'Just let me write a note, Ladywell, and I'm your man,' said Neigh then,
with the freedom of an old acquaintance.

'I was going to do the same thing,' said Ladywell.

Neigh then sat down, and for a minute or two nothing was to be heard but
the scratching of a pair of pens, ending on the one side with a more
boisterous scratch, as the writer shaped 'Eustace Ladywell,' and on the
other with slow firmness in the characters 'Alfred Neigh.'

'There's for you, my fair one,' said Neigh, closing and directing his
letter.

'Yours is for Mrs. Petherwin? So is mine,' said Ladywell, grasping the
bell-pull. 'Shall I direct it to be put on her table with this one?'

'Thanks.' And the two letters went off to Ethelberta's sitting-room,
which she had vacated to receive Lord Mountclere in an empty one beneath.
Neigh's letter was simply a pleading of a sudden call away which
prevented his waiting till she should return; Ladywell's, though stating
the same reason for leaving, was more of an upbraiding nature, and might
almost have told its reader, were she to take the trouble to guess, that
he knew of the business of Lord Mountclere with her to-day.

'Now, let us get out of this place,' said Neigh. He proceeded at once
down the stairs, followed by Ladywell, who--settling his account at the
bureau without calling for a bill, and directing his portmanteau to be
sent to the Right-bank railway station--went with Neigh into the street.

They had not walked fifty yards up the quay when two British workmen, in
holiday costume, who had just turned the corner of the Rue Jeanne d'Arc,
approached them. Seeing him to be an Englishman, one of the two
addressed Neigh, saying, 'Can you tell us the way, sir, to the Hotel Bold
Soldier?'

Neigh pointed out the place he had just come from to the tall young men,
and continued his walk with Ladywell.

Ladywell was the first to break silence. 'I have been considerably
misled, Neigh,' he said; 'and I imagine from what has just happened that
you have been misled too.'

'Just a little,' said Neigh, bringin