in my astonishment.
She looked ready to faint with fatigue and dismay, and she laid her hand
heavily on my arm, as if to save herself from sinking to the ground.

"Have you found her?" she asked, involuntarily.

"Not a trace of her," I answered.

Mrs. Foster broke into an hysterical laugh, which was very quickly
followed by sobs. I had no great difficulty in persuading the landlady
to find some accommodation for her, and then I retired to my own room to
smoke in peace, and turn over the extraordinary meeting which had been
the last incident of the day.

It required very little keenness to come to the conclusion that the
Fosters had obtained their information concerning Miss Ellen Martineau,
where we had got ours, from Mrs. Wilkinson. Also that Mrs. Foster had
lost no time in following up the clew, for she was only twenty-four
hours behind me. She had looked thoroughly astonished and dismayed when
she saw me there; so she had had no idea that I was on the same track.
But nothing could be more convincing than this journey of hers that
neither she nor Foster really believed in Olivia's death. That was as
clear as day. But what explanation could I give to myself of those
letters, of Olivia's above all? Was it possible that she had caused them
to be written, and sent to her husband? I could not even admit such a
question, without a sharp sense of disappointment in her.

I saw Mrs. Foster early in the morning, somewhat as a truce-bearer may
meet another on neutral ground. She was grateful to me for my
interposition in her behalf the night before; and, as I knew Ellen
Martineau to be safely out of the way, I was inclined to be tolerant
toward her. I assured her, upon my honor, that I had failed in
discovering any trace of Olivia in Noireau, and I told her all I had
learned about the bankruptcy of Monsieur Perrier, and the scattering of
the school.

"But why should you undertake such a chase?" I asked; "if you and Foster
are satisfied that Olivia is dead, why should you be running after Ellen
Martineau? You show me the papers which seem to prove her death, and now
I find you in this remote part of Normandy, evidently in pursuit of her.
What does this mean?"

"You are doing the same thing yourself," she answered.

"Yes," I replied, "because I am not satisfied. But you have proved your
conviction by becoming Richard Foster's second wife."

"That is the very point," she said, shedding a few tears; "as soon as
ever Mrs.