packet of Vanderlyn's letters: "Fancy keeping your
old letters! What a queer thing to do!"

Vanderlyn said nothing. The maid stared at him stealthily.

At last Pargeter put the packet down, and deliberately opened yet
another envelope which lay loose. "I suppose this is the last note you
wrote to her?" he said, then, opening it, murmured its contents over to
himself:--

"Dear Peggy,

"I hear the show at the Gardinets is worth seeing. I'll call for
you at two to-morrow.

Yours sincerely,
"L. V."

"Well, it's no use our wasting any more time here, is it? We'd better go
downstairs and have a smoke. Why--why, Grid!--what's the matter?"

"It's nothing," said Vanderlyn, roughly, "I'll be all right in a minute
or two----"

"I don't wonder you're upset," said the other, moodily. "But just think
what it must be for _me_. I can't stand much more of it. It's been
simply awful since Peggy's brother and that cousin of hers arrived. They
treat me as if I were a murderer! They're at the Prefecture of Police
now, making what they're pleased to call their own enquiries."

They had left Peggy's room, and as he spoke Pargeter was leading the way
down a staircase which led into his smoking-room.

Once there, he shut the door and came and stood close by Vanderlyn.

"Grid," he said, lowering his voice, "I've been wondering--don't you
think it would be a good plan if I were to go and see that
fortune-teller of mine, Madame d'Elphis? I don't mind telling you that
I'd a shot at her yesterday evening, but she was away. She does
sometimes make mistakes, but still, she's a kind of Providence to me. I
never do anything important--I mean at the stables--without consulting
her."

Vanderlyn looked at the eager face, the odd twinkling green and blue
eyes, with scarcely concealed surprise and contempt.

"Surely you don't think she could tell you where--what's happened to
Peggy?" he said incredulously.

"If I could have seen her last night," went on Pargeter, "I'd have got
away to England to-day. There's no object in my staying here; _I_ can't
help them to find Peggy. But La d'Elphis won't see me before to-morrow
morning. If she can't clear up the mystery nobody can. I'm beginning to
think, Grid"--he came close up to the other man,--"that something must
have happened to her. I'm beginning to feel--worried!"

X.

An hour later Vanderlyn had escaped from Pargeter, and was standing
alone in Madame de Lera