re crying round my neck and begging me not to
throw you over. Oh, that hurts, does it?" he said as she winced. "I
dare say you'd like all that wiped out and forgotten. But I've got a
few letters to remember you by--a few letters that would hardly make
pleasant reading for the next man who is fool enough to waste his time
on you--and I promise you I'll send them along if it's Mellowes or any
other man----"

She raised triumphant eyes to his face.

"He wouldn't read them," she said passionately. "Send them if you
like; but he wouldn't read them----" She was not conscious of the
admission in her words--she only knew that the knowledge that Micky
was there somewhere in the background gave her the strength to defy
Ashton.

She saw the sudden fury that filled his eyes.

"Then--then you admit that it's Mellowes," he stammered. "That it's he
who has taken my place--who has cut me out----" His voice changed to a
sort of threat.

"I might have know what he meant to do. I might have guessed. Wait
till I see him--wait till I get back to London."

Esther smiled--a little smile of security and confidence.

"There is no need to wait," she said quietly. "Mr. Mellowes is here in
Paris with me, if you wish to see him."

CHAPTER XXXI

Ashton echoed Esther's words hoarsely.

"Here! With you! in Paris!... Micky----"

A wave of bitterest jealousy surged through him. He fell back a step,
struck dumb by the force of his emotions, and Esther fled away from
him down the street.

She seemed to have awakened all at once to her true position. She was
alone, with only a few shillings in her pocket and in a strange city.

She was tired to death. She felt as if her limbs would give way
beneath her. The driver of a fiacre looked at her and drew his horse
to the kerb.

Esther nodded; she threw her suit-case on to the seat and clambered in
after it.

But where to go? The old blinding fear of her loneliness rushed back.
Where could she go?

Then she suddenly remembered the hotel from which Micky had written to
her. She would go there. It would be somewhere at least to sleep and
rest.

It was only a little drive to the hotel; she wished it had been
longer.

A commissionaire came forward, and said something in French. She
looked up at him, but his face seemed all indistinct and unreal. She
tried to answer, but her own voice sounded as if it were miles away.

They were in the small, rather dreary lounge. Esther passed a han