en she reminded herself that, after all, the silent, gaunt man, and
his talkative, voluble wife, seemed to be on exceptionally good terms the
one with the other. Perhaps they really preferred being alone together
than in a more peopled atmosphere.

While moving aimlessly about the room, Sylvia began to feel unaccountably
nervous and oppressed. She longed to be away from this still, empty
house, and yet it seemed absurd to leave just as the Wachners would be
returning home.

After a few more minutes, however, the quietude, and the having
absolutely nothing to do with which to wile away the time, affected
Sylvia's nerves.

It was, after all, quite possible that the Wachners intended to wait in
Paris till the heat of the day was over. In that case they would not be
back till seven o'clock.

The best thing she could do would be to leave a note inviting Madame
Wachner and L'Ami Fritz to dinner at the Villa du Lac. Count Paul was to
be in Paris this evening, so his eyes would not be offended by the sight
of the people of whom he so disapproved. Madame Wachner would probably be
glad to dine out, the more so that no proper meal seemed to have been
prepared by that unpleasant day-servant. Why, the woman had not even laid
the cloth for her employers' supper!

Sylvia looked instinctively round for paper and envelopes, but there
was no writing-table, not even a pencil and paper, in the little
drawing-room. How absurd and annoying!

But, stay--somewhere in the house there must be writing materials.

Treading softly, and yet hearing her footsteps echoing with unpleasant
loudness through the empty house, Sylvia Bailey walked past the open door
of the little kitchen, and so to the end of the passage.

Then something extraordinary happened.

While in the act of opening the door of Madame Wachner's bed-room, the
young Englishwoman stopped and caught her breath. Again she had suddenly
experienced that unpleasant, eerie sensation--the sensation that _she was
not alone_. But this time the feeling was far more vivid than it had been
in the dining-room.

So strong, so definite was Sylvia's perception of another presence, and
this time of a human presence, in the still house, that she turned
sharply round--

But all she saw was the empty passage, cut by a shaft of light thrown
from the open door of the kitchen, stretching its short length down to
the entrance hall.

Making a determined effort over what she could but suppose to b