these thoughts, and still firmly resolved to help Lady
Blackadder, when l'Echelle, the conductor whose services I still
retained, sought me out hurriedly, and told me that he believed the
others were on the point of leaving Brieg.

"I saw Falfani and milord poring over the pages of the _Indicateur_,
and heard the word Geneva dropped in a whisper. I think they mean to
take the next train along the lake shore."

"Not a doubt of it," I assented; "so will we. They must not be allowed
to go beyond our reach."

When the 6.57 P.M. for Geneva was due out from Brieg, we,
l'Echelle and I, appeared on the platform, and our intention to travel
by it was made plain to Lord Blackadder. The effect upon him was
painfully manifest at once. He chafed, he raged up and down, grimacing
and apostrophizing Falfani; once or twice he approached me with
clenched fists, and I really thought would have struck me at last.
Seeing me enter the same carriage with him, with the obvious intention
of keeping him under my eye, he threw himself back among the cushions
and yielded himself with the worst grace to the inevitable.

The railway journey was horribly slow, and it must have been past 11
P.M. before we reached Geneva. We alighted in the Cornavin
station, and as they moved at once towards the exit I followed. I
expected them to take a carriage and drive off, and was prepared to
give chase, when I found they started on foot, evidently to some
destination close at hand. It proved to be the Cornavin Hotel, not a
stone's-throw from the station.

They entered, and went straight to the bureau, where the night clerk
was at his desk. I heard them ask for a person named Tiler, and
without consulting his books the clerk replied angrily:

"Tiler! Tiler! _Ma foi_, he is of no account, your Tiler. He has gone
off from the dinner-table and without paying his bill."

"That shall be made all right," replied Lord Blackadder loftily, as he
detailed his name and quality, before which the employe bowed low.
"And might I ask," his lordship went on, "whether a certain Mrs.
Blair, a lady with her child and its nurse, is staying in the hotel?"

"But certainly, milord. They have been here some days. Salon and suite
No. 17."

"At any rate, that's well, Falfani," said Lord Blackadder, with a sigh
of satisfaction. "But what of your friend Tiler? Thick-headed dolt,
unable to keep awake, I suppose."

At that moment a shabbily dressed person approached Falfani, touch