t travel
in that dress--can you? Mr. Bellingham has sent you something," I
added, taking out the cardboard box.

Quickly she opened it, and drew out a lady's motor-cap and veil with a
talc front, and a big, heavy, fur-lined coat.

For a moment she looked at them in hesitation. Then, glancing up and
down the road to see if she were observed, she took off her religious
headdress and collar, twisted around her neck the silk scarf she found
in the box, pinned on her hat and adjusted her veil in such a manner
that it struck me she was no novice at motoring, even though she were a
nun, and then, with my assistance, she struggled into the fur-lined
coat.

The stiff linen cap and collar she screwed up and put into the cardboard
box, and then, fully equipped for the long journey South, she asked--

"May I come up beside you? I'd love to ride in front."

"Most certainly, mademoiselle," I replied. "It won't then be so lonely
for either of us. We can talk."

In her motor-clothes she was certainly a most dainty and delightful
little companion. The hat, veil, and coat had completely transformed
her. From a demure little nun she had in a few moments blossomed forth
into a piquante little girl, who seemed quite ready to set the
_convenances_ at naught as long as she enjoyed herself.

From the business-like manner in which she wrapped the waterproof rug
about her skirts and tucked it in herself, I saw that this was not the
first time by many that she had been in the front seat of a car.

But a few moments later, when she had settled herself, and I had given
her a pair of goggles and helped her to adjust them, I also got up, and
we moved away again along that long white highway that traverses France
by Sens, Dijon, Macon, Lyons, Valence, and Digue, and has its end at the
rocky shore of the blue Mediterranean at Cannes--that land of flowers
and flashy adventurers, which the French term the Cote d'Azur.

From the very first, however, the pretty Pierrette--for her beauty had
certainly not been exaggerated by Bindo--was an entire mystery--a
mystery which seemed to increase hourly, as you will quickly realise.

II

PIERRETTE TELLS HER STORY

Pierrette Dumont--for that was her name, she told me--proved a most
charming and entertaining companion, and could, I found, speak English
quite well.

She had lived nearly seven years in England--in London, Brighton, and
other places--and as we set the car along that beautiful road that