but at that moment the stationmaster, standing at
the buffet door, said--

"Pardon, m'sieur. I am just closing the station. The last train has
departed."

"Do take me!" implored the girl. "Do, m'sieur! Do!"

There was no time for further discussion, therefore I did as she
requested, and a few moments later, with a dressing-case, which was all
the baggage she had, she mounted into the car beside me, and we moved
off northward to the capital.

I offered her the fur rug, and she wrapped it about her knees with the
air of one used to motoring.

And so, hour after hour, we sat and chatted. I asked her if she liked a
cigarette, and she gladly accepted. So we smoked together, while she
told me something of herself. She was a native of Nimes, where her
people had been wealthy landowners, she said, but some unfortunate
speculation on her father's part brought ruin to them, and she was now
governess in the family of a certain Baron de Moret, of the Chateau de
Moret, near Paris.

A governess! I had believed from her dress and manner that she was at
least the daughter of some French aristocrat, and I confess I was
disappointed to find that she was only a superior servant.

"I have just come from Nice," she explained, "on very urgent
business--business that concerns my own self. If I am not in Paris this
morning I shall, in all probability, pay the penalty with my life."

"How? What do you mean?"

In the grey dawn, as we went on towards Paris, I saw that her
countenance was that of a woman who held a secret. At first I had been
conscious that there was something unusual about her, and suspected her
to be an adventuress; but now, on further acquaintance, I became
convinced that she held possession of some knowledge that she was
yearning to betray, yet feared to do so.

One fact that struck me as curious was that, in the course of our
conversation, she showed that she knew my destination was London. This
puzzled me.

"When we arrive in Paris I must leave you to keep my appointments," she
said. "We will meet again at the corner of the Rue Royale, if you really
will take me on to Boulogne with you?"

"Most certainly," was my reply.

"Ah!" she sighed, looking straight into my face with those great dark
eyes that were so luminous, "you do not know--you can never guess what a
great service you have rendered me by allowing me to travel here with
you. My peril is the gravest that--well, that ever threatened a woman;
yet no