out. "My name is not mentioned, but my misfortune
is alluded to in the newspapers," she said. "Well-meaning friends are
calling and condoling with me already. I shall die, if you don't help me
to get away among strangers!"

I start for Paris by the mail train, to-night.

Paris, February 13.--It is evening. I have just returned from St.
Germain. Everything is settled--with more slyness on my part. I begin to
think I am a born Jesuit; there must have been some detestable sympathy
between Father Benwell and me.

My good friends, Monsieur and Madame Villeray, will be only too glad
to receive English ladies, known to me for many years. The spacious
and handsome first floor of their house (inherited from once wealthy
ancestors by Madame Villeray) can be got ready to receive Mrs. Eyrecourt
and her daughter in a week's time. Our one difficulty related to the
question of money. Monsieur Villeray, living on a Government pension,
was modestly unwilling to ask terms; and I was too absolutely ignorant
of the subject to be of the slightest assistance to him. It ended in our
appealing to a house-agent at St. Germain. His estimate appeared to me
to be quite reasonable. But it exceeded the pecuniary limit mentioned by
Mrs. Eyrecourt. I had known the Villerays long enough to be in no danger
of offending them by proposing a secret arrangement which permitted me
to pay the difference. So that difficulty was got over in due course of
time.

We went into the large garden at the back of the house, and there I
committed another act of duplicity.

In a nice sheltered corner I discovered one of those essentially French
buildings called a "pavilion," a delightful little toy house of three
rooms. Another private arrangement made me the tenant of this place.
Madame Villeray smiled. "I bet you," she said to me in her very best
English, "one of these ladies is in her fascinating first youth." The
good lady little knows what a hopeless love affair mine is. I must see
Stella sometimes--I ask, and hope for, no more. Never have I felt how
lonely my life is, as I feel it now.

Third Extract.

London, March 1.--Stella and her mother have set forth on their journey
to St. Germain this morning, without allowing me, as I had hoped and
planned, to be their escort.

Mrs. Eyrecourt set up the old objection of the claims of propriety. If
that were the only obstacle in my way, I should have set it aside by
following them to France. Where is the impropri