that
emotion. 'See what I have done for you. You have been my constant care
and anxiety for I can't tell how long. I have stayed awake at night
thinking how I might best give you a good start in the world by
arranging this judicious marriage, when you have been sleeping as sound
as a top with no cares upon your mind at all, and now I have got into
a scrape--as the most thoughtful of us may sometimes--you go to make
inquiries.'

'I have promised the lady to whom this money belongs--whose generosity
has been shamefully abused in some way--that I will deliver it into no
hands but those of one man, and he has not yet appeared. I therefore go
to find him.'

Dare laid his hand upon De Stancy's arm. 'Captain, we are both warm, and
punctilious on points of honour; this will come to a split between us if
we don't mind. So, not to bring matters to a crisis, lend me ten pounds
here to enable me to get home, and I'll disappear.'

In a state bordering on distraction, eager to get the young man out
of his sight before worse revelations should rise up between them, De
Stancy without pausing in his walk gave him the sum demanded. He soon
reached the post-office, where he inquired if a Mr. Somerset had left
any directions for forwarding letters.

It was just what Somerset had done. De Stancy was told that Mr. Somerset
had commanded that any letters should be sent on to him at the Hotel
Victoria, San Remo.

It was now evident that the scheme of getting money from Paula was
either of Dare's invention, or that Somerset, ashamed of his first
impulse, had abandoned it as speedily as it had been formed. De Stancy
turned and went out. Dare, in keeping with his promise, had vanished.
Captain De Stancy resolved to do nothing in the case till further events
should enlighten him, beyond sending a line to Miss Power to inform her
that Somerset had not appeared, and that he therefore retained the money
for further instructions.

BOOK THE FIFTH. DE STANCY AND PAULA.

I.

Miss Power was reclining on a red velvet couch in the bedroom of an
old-fashioned red hotel at Strassburg, and her friend Miss De Stancy was
sitting by a window of the same apartment. They were both rather wearied
by a long journey of the previous day. The hotel overlooked the large
open Kleber Platz, erect in the midst of which the bronze statue of
General Kleber received the rays of a warm sun that was powerless to
brighten him. The whole square, with its people