elightful simplicity. Her toilette was that of the ideal Frenchwoman
who goes out for a morning's shopping, and may possibly lunch in the
Bois. She was still very pale, however, and the dark lines under her
eyes seemed to speak of a sleepless night. I fancied that she welcomed
me a little shyly. She dropped her veil almost at once, and she did
not ask me to sit down.

"I hope that you have some news this morning of your uncle, Miss
Delora?" I asked.

She shook her head.

"I have not heard--anything of importance," she answered.

"I am sorry," I said. "I am afraid that you must be getting very
anxious."

She bent over the button of her glove.

"Yes," she admitted. "I am very anxious! I am very anxious indeed. I
scarcely know what to do."

"Tell me, then," I said, "why do you not let me go with you to the
police and have some inquiries made? If you prefer it, we could go to
a private detective. I really think that something ought to be done."

She shook her head.

"I dare not," she said simply.

"Dare not?" I repeated.

"Because when he returns," she explained, "he would be so very, very
angry with me. He is a very eccentric man--my uncle. He does strange
things, and he allows no one to question his actions."

"But he has no right," I declared hotly, "to leave you like this in a
strange hotel, without even a maid, without a word of farewell or
explanation. The thing is preposterous!"

She had finished buttoning her gloves, and looked up at me with a
queer little smile at the corner of her lips and her hands behind her.

"Capitaine Rotherby," she said, "there are so many things which it
seems hard to understand. I myself am very unhappy and perplexed, but
I do know what my uncle would wish me to do. He would wish me to
remain quite quiet, and to wait."

I was silent for a few moments. It was difficult to reason with her.

"You have been out this morning," I said, a little abruptly.

"I have been out," she admitted. "I do not think, Capitaine Rotherby,
that I must tell you where I have been, but I went to the one place
where I thought that I might have news of him."

"You brought back with you a companion."

"No, not a companion," she interposed gently. "You must not think
that, Capitaine Rotherby. He was just a person who--who had to come.
You are not cross with me," she asked, lifting her eyes a little
timidly to mine, "that there are some things which I do not tell you?"

"No, I am not cross!" I