out if he was to be useful to her in either respect. And it
also occurred to her that he might be made useful in more ways than as a
source of information.

"You thought I was some one else when I sat down upon you?" she said,
ignoring his last remark, and trying to read his features in the gloom.
It was light enough to enable her to note that her question recalled the
ferocity to his deep-sunk eyes, though not for her. His hardening gaze
was rather for some one he saw in his mental vision.

"Yes, I t'ink you was anozer person, ma'amselle, and for that I demand
of you the kind pardon, for she very weecked person," he said.
"Ma'amselle not cruel and weecked--I Pierre Legros, tell by her voice.
But that ozair, she _fille du diable_, and trample on the heart of man,
and make him more bad than herself. She and her false Ingleesh lover."

The onion-seller had no more terrors for Enid, and she drew a little
closer, subtly conveying the idea of confidence in order to win his
confidence. She rejoiced that she had been locked up in the grotto now.
She guessed that the core of the mystery lay under the cotton blouse of
this rugged foreign sailor, and she meant to have it out of him by hook
or by crook. Rapidly casting about for the most effective weapon in her
equipment, she hit upon friendly sympathy as the best--for the opening
of the campaign, at any rate. A little later, perhaps, she would play
for all it was worth the sentiment that they were companions in the same
dilemma.

"I am sorry that you are in trouble," she said kindly, and wondering
what language Reggie would use if he knew how he was to be exploited for
her purpose. "I wish I could help you, for I, too, know what it is to
have an affair of the heart. I am betrothed to a sailor, and he has gone
away and left me miserable. Got half a dozen wives in half a dozen
ports, I expect."

Enid Mallory was her father's daughter, and had inherited a strain of
the veteran diplomatist's knowledge of human nature. A thrill of victory
ran through her veins as she noted the effect of her Parthian shot. For
Pierre Legros lifted his brown hands to his swarthy face and wept such a
flood of tears as a British seaman could not have secreted, let alone
shed, in a lifetime. She waited patiently till the paroxysm had passed,
and then reaped her reward in a flow of excited verbiage which amounted
to this--

He was one of the hands on a lugger which had brought a cargo of onions
from