d soon be due back, and the dainty Rosalie must be
there to receive her.

Upon our walk across the town I flattered her, pretending to be her
devoted admirer, but when I left her I felt more convinced than ever
upon three points--namely, that she was much older than twenty-two, as
she had declared; that she was unduly inquisitive; and that she
certainly was no fool.

That night I sent my master a note to his room warning him to be wary of
her, and on the following morning I told Her Highness my suspicions.

From that moment I made it my object in life to keep a watchful eye upon
the new French maid. Each evening, after her services were no longer
required, she went forth alone and wandered idly up and down the
esplanade. Sometimes she walked out to Ardenza, a village a mile and a
half distant, halted always at the same stone seat in the little public
garden, and then strolled back again, in blissful ignorance of being so
closely watched.

If Rosalie had any suspicion that Valentine was not the Princess Helen,
then there was, I foresaw, a grave and constant danger. And I, for one,
did not intend to run any further risk.

Her Highness had been in Leghorn just over three weeks, and had become
intensely popular everywhere, being invited to the houses of many of the
principal residents, when one night an incident occurred which afforded
me grave food for reflection.

Just after ten o'clock at night I had followed Rosalie along by the sea
to Ardenza, where she was sitting alone upon her usual seat in a
secluded spot, at the edge of the public garden, on a kind of small
promontory that ran in a semicircle out to the sea. Behind her was a
dark thicket of azaleas, and in front the calm moonlit Mediterranean.

I was standing back in the shadow at a spot where I had often stood
before, when, after about five minutes, I saw the tall dark figure of a
man in a grey deer-stalker hat join her, and sit down unceremoniously at
her side.

As soon as they met she began to tell him some long story, to which the
stranger listened without comment. Then he seemed to question her
closely, and they remained together fully a quarter of an hour, until at
last they rose and parted, she walking calmly back to the hotel.

Was it possible that the dainty Rosalie was a spy?

When I got half-way back to the Palace I regretted deeply that I had not
followed the stranger and ascertained whom he might be. Next day I told
Valentine, but she mere