apparently
had seen service.

"When we took your bed, after the atrocious and mysterious happening,"
said the maid rapidly, "this was found in the sheets. It was not thought
that it could possibly be madame's, because it was so poor, until this
morning when it was suggested that it might be a souvenir that madame
values."

"You found it in the sheets?" asked Lydia in surprise.

"Yes, madame."

"It doesn't belong to me," said Lydia. "Perhaps it belongs to Madame
Cole-Mortimer. I will show it to her."

Mrs. Cole-Mortimer was a devout Catholic and it might easily be some
cherished keep-sake of hers.

The girl carried the cross to the window; an "X" had been scrawled by
some sharp-pointed instrument at the junction of the bars. There was no
other mark to identify the trinket.

She put the cross in her bag, and when she saw Mrs. Cole-Mortimer again
she forgot to ask her about it.

The car drove her into Nice alone. Jean did not feel inclined to make
the journey and Lydia rather enjoyed the solitude.

The isolation hospital was at the top of the hill and she found some
difficulty in obtaining admission at this hour. The arrival of the chief
medical officer, however, saved her from making the journey in vain. The
report he gave about the child was very satisfactory; the mother was in
the isolation ward.

"Can she be seen?"

"Yes, madame," said the urbane Frenchman in charge. "You understand, you
will not be able to get near her? It will be rather like interviewing a
prisoner, for she will be behind one set of bars and you behind
another."

Lydia was taken to a room which was, she imagined, very much like a room
in which prisoners interviewed their distressed relations. There were
not exactly bars, but two large mesh nets of steel separated the visitor
from the patient under observation. After a time a nun brought in the
gardener's wife, a tall, gaunt woman, who was a native of Marseilles,
and spoke the confusing patois of that city with great rapidity. It was
some time before Lydia could accustom her ear to the queer dialect.

Her boy was getting well, she said, but she herself was in terrible
trouble. She had no money for the extra food she required. Her husband
who was away in Paris when the child had been taken, had not troubled to
write to her. It was terrible being in a place amongst other fever
cases, and she was certain that her days were numbered....

Lydia pushed a five-hundred franc note through t