no, not at all. I must get to Paris at all costs. Ah, m'sieur! You
will allow me to do as I ask, will you not? Do. I implore you."

I made no reply, for truth to tell, although I was not suspicious, I
hesitated to allow the fair stranger to be my travelling companion. It
was against my principle. Yet reading disinclination in my silence, she
continued:

"Ah, m'sieur! If you only knew in what deadly peril I am! By granting
this favour to me you can"--and she broke off short. "Well," she went
on, "I may as well tell you the truth, m'sieur," and in her eyes there
was a strange look that I had never seen in those of any woman before,
"you can save my life."

"Your life!" I echoed, but at that moment the sleeping-car conductor,
standing at the buffet-door, called:

"_En voiture_, m'sieur. The train is just starting."

"Do take me," implored the girl. "Do, m'sieur. Do."

There was no time for further discussion, therefore I did as she
requested, and a few moments later, with a dressing-case, which was all
the baggage she had, she mounted into the _wagon-lit_, and we moved off
to the French capital.

I offered her the sleeping-compartment to herself, but she steadily
refused to accept it.

"No, m'sieur, certainly not," was her reply. "I shall sit in the
corridor all night, as I have already said."

And so, hour after hour, while all the passengers had retired to rest,
we sat at the end of the car and chatted. I asked her if she liked a
cigarette, and she gladly accepted. So we smoked together, while she
told me something of herself. She was a native of Orleans, where her
people had been wealthy landowners, she said, but some unfortunate
speculation on her father's part brought ruin to them, and she was now
governess in the family of a certain Baron de Moret, of the Chateau de
Moret, near Paris.

A governess! I had believed from her dress and manner that she was at
least the daughter of some French aristocrat, and I confess I was
disappointed to find that she was only a superior servant.

"I have just come from Breslau," she explained. "On very urgent
business--business that concerns my own self. If I am not in Paris this
morning I shall, in all probability, pay the penalty with my life."

"How? What do you mean?"

In the grey dawn as the express roared on towards Paris I saw that her
countenance was that of a woman who held a secret. At first I had been
conscious that there was something unusual about her, and