New Forest will
be just the place for her. We stayed there three days after landing,
because my Beatrice here was very sea-sick and I wanted her to have a
little rest. We were simply crazy over it. I do hope Mrs. Jardine's
getting better."

All this had been delivered with such speed, such an air of decision and
purpose, that Madame von Marwitz, who had risen in her bewildered
indignation and stood, her book beneath her arm, her white cloak caught
about her, had found no opportunity to check the torrent of speech, and
as these last words came as swiftly and as casually as the rest she
could hardly, for a moment, collect her faculties.

"My niece? Mrs. Jardine?" she repeated, with a wild, wan utterance.
"What do you say of her?"

It was at this moment that Miss Beatrice began, in the background, to
adjust her camera. She told her mother and sister afterwards that she
seemed to feel it in her bones that something was doing.

Mrs. Slifer, emerging from her breaker in triumph, struck out, blinking
and smiling affably. "We heard all about the wedding in America," she
said, "and we thought we might call upon her in London and see that
splendid temple you'd given her--we heard all about that, too. I never
saw a picture of him, but I knew her in a minute, naturally, though she
did look so pulled down. Why, Baroness--what's the matter!"

Madame von Marwitz had suddenly clutched Mrs. Slifer's arm with an
almost appalling violence of mien and gesture.

"What is the matter?" Madame von Marwitz repeated, shaking Mrs. Slifer's
arm. "Do you know what you are saying? My niece has been lost for a
week! The whole country is searching for her! Where have you seen her?
When was it? Answer me at once!"

"Why Baroness, by all means, but you needn't shake my head off," said
Mrs. Slifer, not without dignity, raising her free hand to straighten
her hat. "We've never heard a word about it. Why this is perfectly
providential.--Baroness--I must ask you not to go on shaking me like
that. I've got a very delicate stomach and the least thing upsets my
digestion."

"_Justes cieux!_" Madame von Marwitz cried, dropping Mrs. Slifer's arm
and raising her hands to her head, while, in the background, Miss
Beatrice's kodak gave a click--"Will the woman drive me mad! Karen! My
child! Where is she!"

"Why, we saw her at the station at Brockenhurst--in the New
Forest--didn't we Maude," said Mrs. Slifer, "and it must have been--now
let me see--" poo