cigarette and
began to pace the room.

"Really, I am greatly indebted to you for this information," he said.
"The knowledge of Miss Maynard's infatuation for a man so utterly
unworthy of her will alter my plans, or rather, hurry them to a crisis.
I am, as perhaps you are aware, mademoiselle, a friend of Mr. Montague
Maynard. I have, therefore, now a double incitement to bring Chermside
to justice--that of saving my friend's daughter from a horrible
mesalliance, and of securing for you the satisfaction which you so
justly desire."

"Mr. Chermside is very rich, is he not?" asked Louise, her cunning but
unequal brain beginning to weave an entirely new web, in which she was
ultimately to entangle herself.

Travers Nugent shot a glance at her as she toyed with the stem of her
wine-glass. For the moment her question caused him a trifling
embarrassment. He would have liked to have answered it differently, but
he reflected that it would be dangerous to do so, for this woman was by
no means a fool. He was credited, rightly, with the introduction at
Ottermouth of Leslie Chermside as a man of wealth. His letter to the
secretary of the club would be on file to prove it, and by that he must
abide--for the present.

"Mr. Chermside has the command of vast resources," was his guarded
answer. "But I do not think that he will need to plead that argument
with a girl of Miss Maynard's character. His worldly position will not
weigh with her for an instant if she loves him. She is rich enough for
two, you see."

But apparently mademoiselle did not see. Just then she had lost the
thread of that newly-woven web on which her busy wits had set to work,
and she was staring at one of the long windows. Travers Nugent was
something of an artist by temperament, and on sitting down to dinner he
had had the blinds left up so as to enjoy the dying after-glow in the
western sky.

"The eyes! The peering eyes!" Louise exclaimed in a tense whisper.

Following the direction of her gaze, Nugent in four rapid strides
reached the window, and, flinging it open, dragged into the well-lit
room the lithe and sinewy form of a man dressed in blue jean. It was the
French onion-seller whom Aunt Sarah Dymmock had driven from the
precincts of the Manor House at the point of her sunshade. Louise
uttered a suppressed shriek as Nugent released his grip on the
Frenchman's collar and carefully closed the window.

"_Mon Dieu!_ it is Pierre Legros," she cried, lookin