were many bathers in remarkable costumes, enjoying
a dip in the blue sea, while the crowd of promenaders in summer clothes
passed up and down. The season was at its height, for it was the race
week at Deauville, and all the pleasure world of Paris had flocked
there.

Surely in the whole of gay Europe there is no brighter watering place
than Trouville-sur-Mer during the race week, and certainly the
played-out old Riviera, with the eternal Monte, is never so _chic_, nor
are the extravagant _modes_ ever so much in evidence, as at the
Normandie at Deauville, or upon the boarded promenade which runs before
those big, white hotels on the sands at Trouville.

Prices were, of course, prohibitive. The casino was at its gayest and
brightest, and the well-known American bar, close to the last-named
institution, Ansell patronised daily in order to scrape acquaintance
with its chance customers.

Having been up playing cards the greater part of the night before, he
had eaten his luncheon in bed, and had just risen and dressed.

He gazed out of his window down upon the sunny scene of seaside revelry,
as a bitter smile played upon his lips.

"What infernal luck I had last night," he muttered, between his teeth.
Then glancing at the dressing-table, his eyes fell upon the hotel bill,
which had come up on the tray with his _dejeuner_. "Fourteen hundred and
eighteen francs," he muttered, "and only those three louis to pay it
with."

Those last three louis had been flung carelessly upon the table when he
had undressed at six o'clock that morning.

He took them in his palm and looked at them.

"Not a word from Ted," he went on, with a sigh. "I wonder what can have
happened. Has he got a bit more out of the Michelcoombe woman and
cleared out? No," he added, "he's a white man. He'd never prove a
blackguard like that."

Ralph Ansell had not recalled his own dastardly action when he robbed,
deserted, and trapped his accomplice, Adolphe Carlier.

For a long time he remained silent as slowly he paced the small,
well-furnished room, his hands thrust deep in his trousers pockets, his
eyes fixed upon the carpet. His fertile, inventive brain was trying to
devise some subtle means to obtain money. He was a genius regarding
schemes, and he put them before his victims in such an inviting and
attractive way that they found refusal impossible. For some of the
wildest of schemes he had been successful in subscribing money--money
which had enab