mistake in going to the police. The
Malfaits are evidently very angry with me! And yet--and yet, you know in
England it's the first thing that people do."

Count Paul laughed kindly.

"It is a matter of absolutely no consequence. But you see, you never
quite understand, my dear friend, that Lacville is a queer place, and
that here, at any rate, the hotel-keepers are rather afraid of the
police. I was even glad that the Commissioner did not ask to look over
_your_ boxes, and did not exact a passport from you!"

More seriously he added, "But I see that you are dreadfully anxious about
Madame Wolsky, and I myself will communicate with the Paris police about
the matter. It is, as you say, possible, though not probable, that she
met with an accident after leaving you."

CHAPTER XVII

A long week went by, and still no news, no explanation of her abrupt
departure from Lacville, was received from Anna Wolsky; and the owners
of the Pension Malfait were still waiting for instructions as to what
was to be done with Madame Wolsky's luggage, and with the various little
personal possessions she had left scattered about her room.

As for Sylvia, it sometimes seemed to her as if her Polish friend had
been obliterated, suddenly blotted out of existence.

But as time went on she felt more and more pained and discomfited by
Anna's strange and heartless behaviour to herself. Whatever the reason
for Madame Wolsky's abrupt departure, it would not have taken her a
moment to have sent Sylvia Bailey a line--if only to say that she could
give no explanation of her extraordinary conduct.

Fortunately there were many things to distract Sylvia's thoughts from
Anna Wolsky. She now began each morning with a two hours' ride with Paul
de Virieu. She had a graceful seat, and had been well taught; only a
little practice, so the Count assured her, was needed to make her into
a really good horsewoman, the more so that she was very fearless.

Leaving the flat plain of Lacville far behind them, they would make their
way into the Forest of Montmorency, and through to the wide valley, which
is so beautiful and so little known to most foreign visitors to Paris.

The Duchesse d'Eglemont had sent her maid to Lacville with the riding
habit she was lending Sylvia, and by a word M. Polperro let fall, the
Englishwoman realised, with mingled confusion and amusement, that the
hotel-keeper supposed her to be an old and intimate friend of Count
Paul's