ith strangers; and, shepherding their
little party along, the worthy pair went briskly off by the broad avenue
which girdles the lake.

Again Sylvia felt curiously alone. She was surrounded on every side by
groups of merry-looking people, and already out on the lake there floated
tiny white-sailed boats, each containing a man and a girl.

Everyone seemed to have a companion or companions; she alone was
solitary. She even found herself wondering what she was doing there in a
foreign country, by herself, when she might have been in England, in her
own pleasant house at Market Dalling!

She took out of her bag the card which the landlord of the Hotel de
l'Horloge had pressed upon her. "Hotel Pension, Villa du Lac, Lacville."

She went up rather timidly to a respectable-looking old bourgeois and his
wife. "Do you know," she asked, "where is the Villa du Lac?"

"Certainly, Madame," answered the old man amiably. "It is there, close to
you, not a hundred yards away. That big white house to our left." And
then, with that love of giving information which possesses so many
Frenchman, he added:

"The Villa du Lac once belonged to the Marquis de Para, who was
gentleman-in-waiting to the Empress Eugenie. He and his family lived on
here long after the war, in fact"--he lowered his voice--"till the
Concession was granted to the Casino. You know what I mean? The Gambling
Concession. Since then the world of Lacville has become rather mixed, as
I have reason to know, for my wife and I have lived here fifteen years.
The Marquis de Para sold his charming villa. He was driven away, like so
many other excellent people. So the Villa du Lac is now an hotel, where
doubtless Madame has friends?"

Sylvia bowed and thanked him. Yes, the Villa du Lac even now looked like
a delightful and well-kept private house, rather than like an hotel. It
stood some way back--behind high wrought-steel and gilt gates--from the
sandy road which lay between it and the lake, and the stone-paved
courtyard was edged with a line of green tubs, containing orange trees.

Sylvia walked through the gates, which stood hospitably open, and when
she was half-way up the horseshoe stone-staircase which led to the front
door, a man, dressed in the white dress of a French chef, and bearing an
almost ludicrous resemblance to M. Girard, came hurrying out.

"Madame Bailey?" he exclaimed joyously, and bowing very low. "Have I the
honour of greeting Madame Bailey? My cousin t