fact caused me considerable reflection. Why had she so suddenly made up
her mind to come to London, and why should I not know whither she went
when she had told me so many details concerning herself?

Of one fact I felt quite convinced, namely, that she had lied to me. She
was not a governess, as she pretended. Besides, I had been seized by
suspicion that a tall, thin-faced, elderly man, rather shabbily dressed,
whom I had noticed on the platform in Paris, had followed us. He had
travelled second-class, and, on alighting at Victoria, had quickly made
his way through the crowd until he lingered quite close to us as I
wished her farewell.

His reappearance there recalled to me that he had watched us as we had
walked up and down the platform of the Gare du Nord, and had appeared
intensely interested in all our movements. Whether my pretty travelling
companion noticed him I do not know. I, however, followed her as she
walked out of the station carrying her dressing-bag, and saw the tall
man striding after her. Adventurer was written upon the fellow's face.
His grey moustache was upturned, and his keen grey eyes looked out from
beneath shaggy brows, while his dark, thread-bare overcoat was tightly
buttoned across his chest for greater warmth.

Without approaching her he stood back in the shadow and saw her enter a
hansom in the station-yard and drive out into Buckingham Palace Road. It
was clear that she was not going to the address she had given me, for
she was driving in the opposite direction.

My duty was to drive direct to Bruton Street to see Ray and report what
I had discovered, but so interested was I in the thin-faced watcher that
I gave over my wraps to a porter who knew me, exchanged my heavy
travelling-coat for a lighter one I happened to have, and walked out to
keep further observation upon the stranger.

Had not mademoiselle declared herself to be in danger of her life? If
so, was it not possible that this fellow, whoever he was, was a secret
assassin?

I did not like the aspect of the affair at all. I ought to have warned
her against him, and I now became filled with regret. She was a complete
mystery, and as I dogged the footsteps of the unknown foreigner--for
that he undoubtedly was--I became more deeply interested in what was in
progress.

He walked to Trafalgar Square, where he hesitated in such a manner as to
show that he was not well acquainted with London. He did not know which
of the convergi