that a large trunk, corded and even labelled, stood in the middle of the
floor. Close to the trunk was a large piece of sacking--and by it another
coil of thick rope.

Was it possible that the Wachners, too, were leaving Lacville? If so, how
very odd of them not to have told her!

As she opened the door of the bed-room Madame Wachner waddled up behind
her.

"Wait a moment!" she cried. "Or perhaps, dear friend, you do not want a
light? You see, we have been rather upset to-day, for L'Ami Fritz has to
go away for two or three days, and that is a great affair! We are so very
seldom separated. 'Darby and Joan,' is not that what English people would
call us?"

"The moon is so bright I can see quite well," Sylvia was taking off her
hat; she put it, together with a little fancy bag in which she kept the
loose gold she played with at the gambling tables, on Madame Wachner's
bed. She felt vaguely uncomfortable, for even as Madame Wachner had
spoken she had become aware that the bed-room was almost entirely cleared
of everything belonging to its occupants. However, the Wachners, like
Anna Wolsky, had the right to go away without telling anyone of their
intention.

As they came back into the dining-room together, Mrs. Bailey's host, who
was already sitting down at table, looked up.

"Words! Words! Words!" he exclaimed harshly. "Instead of talking so much
why do you not both come here and eat your suppers? I am very hungry."

Sylvia had never heard the odd, silent man speak in such a tone before,
but his wife answered quite good-humouredly,

"You forget, Fritz, that the cabman is coming. Till he has come and gone
we shall not have peace."

And sure enough, within a moment of her saying those words there came a
sound of shuffling footsteps on the garden path.

Monsieur Wachner got up and went out of the room. He opened the front
door, and Sylvia overheard a few words of the colloquy between her host
and his messenger.

"Yes, you are to take it now, at once. Just leave it at the Villa du Lac.
You will come for us--you will come, that is, for _me_"--Monsieur Wachner
raised his voice--"to-morrow morning at half-past six. I desire to catch
the 7.10 train to Paris."

There was a jingle of silver, and then Sylvia caught the man's answering,
"_Merci, c'est entendu, M'sieur._"

But L'Ami Fritz did not come back at once to the dining-room. He went out
into the garden and accompanied the man down to the gate.

When he came