, "you do not know my mother. If she makes up
her mind to anything she is terribly hard to change. I do hope that you
succeed, though. Why ever did Isobel leave you?"

"She received a forged letter, written in somebody else's name," I said.
"How your mother has induced her to stay since, though, I do not know.
She looked very ill at Charing Cross, and she had to be helped into the
train."

The Princess Adelaide went very white.

"It was she I heard this morning--cry out," she murmured. "They told me
it was one of the servants who had had an accident. Mr. Greatson, this
is terrible!"

She turned her head away, and I could see that she was crying.

"You must not distress yourself," I said kindly. "I daresay that it will
all come right. You will see Isobel, I think, in Paris. If you do, will
you give her a message?"

"Of course, I will," she answered.

"Tell her that we are close at hand, and that we have powerful friends,"
I whispered. "We shall get to see her somehow or other, and if she
chooses to return she shall!"

"Yes. Anything else?"

"I think not," I answered.

"Do you not want to send her your love?" she asked, with a faint smile.

"Of course," I said slowly.

She leaned a little over towards me.

"Mr. Greatson," she said, "do you know what I should want you to do if I
were Isobel--what I am quite sure that she must want you to do now?"

"Tell me!"

"Why, marry her! She would be quite safe then, wouldn't she?"

I tried to smile in a non-committal sort of way, but I am afraid there
were things in my face beyond my power to control.

"You forget," I answered. "I am thirty-four, and Isobel is only
eighteen. Besides, there is someone else who wants to marry Isobel. He
is young, and they have been great friends always. I think that she is
fond of him."

She shook her head doubtfully.

"I do not think that thirty-four is old at all, and if you care for
Isobel, I would not let anyone else marry her," she declared. "Is that
Calais?"

"Yes."

"I think that I will go now in case my maid should see us together," she
said. "Oh, I can tell you where we are going in Paris. Will that help
you?"

"Of course it will," I answered.

"Number 17, Rue Henriette," she whispered. "Please come a little further
this way a moment."

I obeyed her at once. We were quite out of sight now, in the quietest
corner of the ship.

"Mr. Greatson," she said, "you will think that I am a very strange girl.
I am going