dear friend, you really must," Madame Wachner spoke very
persuasively. "I should be truly sorry if you did not take this coffee.
Indeed, it would make me think you were angry with us because of the very
bad supper we had given you! L'Ami Fritz would not have taken the trouble
to make coffee for his old wife. He has made it for you, only for you; he
will be hurt if you do not take it!"

The coffee did look very tempting and fragrant.

Sylvia had always disliked coffee in England, but somehow French coffee
was quite different; it had quite another taste from that of the mixture
which the ladies of Market Dalling pressed on their guests at their
dinner-parties.

She lifted the pretty little cup to her lips--but the coffee, this coffee
of L'Ami Fritz, his special mixture, as his wife had termed it, had a
rather curious taste, it was slightly bitter--decidedly not so nice as
that which she was accustomed to drink each day after dejeuner at the
Villa du Lac. Surely it would be very foolish to risk a bad night for
a small cup of indifferent coffee?

She put the cup down, and pushed it away.

"Please do not ask me to take it," she said firmly. "It really is very
bad for me!"

Madame Wachner shrugged her shoulders with an angry gesture.

"So be it," she said, and then imperiously, "Fritz, will you please come
with me for a moment into the next room? I have something to ask you."

He got up and silently obeyed his wife. Before leaving the room he
slipped the key of the garden gate into his trousers pocket.

A moment later Sylvia, left alone, could hear them talking eagerly to one
another in that strange, unknown tongue in which they sometimes--not
often--addressed one another.

She got up from her chair, seized with a sudden, eager desire to slip
away before they came back. For a moment she even thought of leaving the
house without waiting for her hat and little fancy bag; and then, with a
strange sinking of the heart she remembered that the white gate was
locked, and that L'Ami Fritz had now the key of it in his pocket.

But in no case would Sylvia have had time to do what she had thought of
doing, for a moment later her host and hostess were back in the room.

Madame Wachner sat down again at the dining-table,

"One moment!" she exclaimed, rather breathlessly. "Just wait till I 'ave
finished my coffee, Sylvia dear, and then L'Ami Fritz will escort you
'ome."

Rather unwillingly, Sylvia again sat down.

Monsie