t he
was--he had insisted upon fetching fruit and sweetmeats for her. I
calmed her fears, for they were exaggerated beyond all reason. He would
follow in the next train; I knew what Frenchmen were, and they would not
remark a single traveller, unless he had some strong peculiarity in his
appearance, and her husband had a travelled air which was cosmopolitan.
He spoke French like a Frenchman, she told me; and he had proved, on the
boat, that he was familiar with its idioms. I begged her to get her
luggage, go to her hotel, and leave me to watch and search. What hotel
were they to use? She knew nothing about it. Her husband hadn't told
her, for she was an utter stranger to Paris. I recommended the Windsor
(I thought it prudent not to say Mrs. Rowe's); and she was a child in my
hands. She looked even prettier in her distress than when her happy
eyes were beaming, as I first caught sight of them, upon Herbert Daker.
The tears trickled down her cheek; the little white hands shook like
flower bells in the wind. While the luggage was being searched
(fortunately she had the ticket in her reticule), I stood by and helped
her.

"But surely, madam, this is not all!" I remarked, when her two boxes had
been lightly searched. She caught my meaning. Where was her husband's
portmanteau?

"Mr. Baker's portmanteau was left behind at Boulogne--there was some
mistake; I don't know what exactly. I----"

At this moment she marked an expression of anxiety in my face. She gave
a sharp scream, that vibrated through the gloomy hall and startled the
bystanders. "Was madame ill? Would she have some _eau sucree?_" She had
fainted! and her head lay upon my arm!

Unhappy little head, why stir again?

CHAPTER XII.

MRS. DAKER.

"You must come, my dear fellow. You know, when I promise you a pleasant
evening I don't disappoint you. You'll meet everybody. You dine with me.
_Sole Joinville_, at Philippe's--best to be had, I think--and a bird. In
the cool, the Madrid for our coffee, and so gently back. I'll drop you
at your door--leave you for an hour to paint the lily, and then fetch
and take you. You shall not say me nay."

I protested a little, but I was won. I had a couple of days to spend in
Paris, and, like a man on the wing, had no particular engagements.

We met, my host and I, at the _Napolitain_. He knew everybody, and was
everybody's favourite. Cosmo Bertram, once guardsman, then fashionable
saunterer wherever society was gay