A Complete Story.

Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette, 23 August 1911, Page 6

A Complete Story.

» ■— (All Rights Reserved.) THE IMPRISONMENT OF LILIAN TRENT. By GILBERT JH. PAGE, Author of "The Friends V Try sting Place," "The Ipswich Express,*' "Kitty and Nibs," "The Trials of the Tea Ladies," &c. ; "--IT"'1 '■

When the heavy door of the Paris prison closed upon Lilian* Trent she felt as though all youth, all hope, and all happiness were left irretrievably behind.

She found herself in the porter's lodge, confronted by the portress, a tall and muscular woman, whose great strength was scarcely dissimulated by the voluminous folds of her nun's dress. She looked Lillian over with a stern yet indifferent glance.

"Follow me," she said, curtly, and unhitched a bunch of keys from the wall.

Lilian followed through stone passages lighted by small windows set high in the walls, up stone steps, and into a square room, fitted with an office, where two other nuns, silent and austere, sat with great folios open before them. These were the registry books of the prison in which particulars concerning each prisoner were inscribed on her admittance. Here, too, her Christian and surname were pronounced for the last time during her detention; here she was given.a number, and here she first became known by that number, which was henceforth to be her only appellation amongst her fellows.

The particulars entered in the prison books concerning Lillian Trent were as follows: Nationality, English; born in Devonshire, July 21st, 1881; age, twenty-one; profession, governess; accused before the Tribunal of the Seiene of shop-lifting under aggravated circumstances; convicted and sentenced to three years' detention with hard labor in the female penitentiary of St. Genevieve.

Her fair face was covered with blushes, her blue eyes were filled with tears as the above details were read over, and she was on the point of again protesting her innocence, as she had protested it in vain to the gendarmes who had arrested her, to the magistrate who had judged her to the entire court, when the words were frozen on her lips by the hostile, scepßcal, and antipathetic expression of the nun who now rose to take her in charge. She felt intuitively that it would be worse than useless to utter a word.

So, with a heavy heart, she followed her new guide again upstairs, and along corridors, to a" large" room" in which a young nun with a more agreeable but somewhat-feeble coun" tenance" stood busy counting over, and arranging bundles of clothes. One of the prisoners was helping her, a wrinkled, dark-browed woman, garbed in the repulsive prison dress.

This consisted of a short gown of coarse woollen material the color of mustard, a shapeless jacket reach" ing below the hips of a blue and white checked ticking, and a large apron of unbleached calico, the strings of which, passing round the waist, confined the bed-jacket in bulky folds to the figure. The headgear was a little close-fitting cap of black stuff, covering the ears, and tied under the chin. Venus must have looked unattractive in such a costume, and the knowledge that the smallest feminine charm was rigorously denied them increased the punishment of the female prisoners of St. Genevieve a thousandfold.

Round the walls of the apartment in which Lillian found herself ran wide wooden shelves, divided horizontally into roomy, pigeon-holes, and in each compartment lay a bundle of clothing from which dangled a label. These bundles consisted of the clothes the prisoners were wearing on the day of their entrance into the prison, and written legibly on the labels were the names and the dates.

4'Undress," said the nun who stood by Lillian, in curt tones; and in spite of her shame and reluctance the girl had to obey. " The dainty little blue frock which she had been wearing at the moment of her arrest, the many frilled silk petticoats, the open-worked stockings and pretty shoes, were all rolled up together, ticketed, and thrust away upon the shelf, while she was given in exchange stockings of harsh worsted, list slippers, a chemise of coarse yellow calico, and the frightful mustard-colored gown, the bed-jacket and apron constituting the uniform. Next she was .told to sit down, a sheet was, put oven her clothes, and her curly .auburn hair .was unpinned. "Oh, please do not cut off my hair!" she pleaded,-futilely, only receiving a cold-recommendation to keep silence or she would get a bad mark against her number; and then the nun, wielded with swift, experr ienced fingers a large pair of scis* sors, snipped the sunny, hair close to the roots, lathered it over,-and shaved it'as skilfully as any barber could have done. Next, Lillian's head was-sponged, dried, the little black sttiff-c^p"Was tied on, and the transformation was complete.

None but the painter accustomed to the study* of lines," and iibie to substract the disfiguration due to unshapely clothes, could 1 ever have guessed that No. 67~was an exceptionally beautiful girl. Now came the clanging of a bell and the muffled sound of hundreds of tramping feet. The nun conducted Lillian into the corridor, where the prisoners were passing in Indian file from the work-rooms to the chapel. They comprised women of every age and condition, but all looked sullen discontented, and repellently ugly, thanks mainly to the dress.

Lillian was told to take her place amongst these women, and as she did so the prisoner who had been in the wardrobe-room with her whispered to a comrade Lillian's name. I But one of the nun-gaolers had caught the' whisper, and to break silence at any time was a heinous offence against the rules. "Number 42, twelve hours in the punishment cells," came the sentence, and a nun advanced to lead | the culprit away. ; "No, no! I won't go! I won't go!" screamed the woman desperately.

"Twenty-four hours for resisting," pronounced the implacable voice, and the fury of No. 42 suddenly changed into heartrending sobs as two stalwart servant-sisters roughly hurried her out of sight. The sound of those despairful sobs haunted Lillian during the rest of the day, during chapel, during the hurried and silent meal of bread and water eaten after it, during the four hours' silent needlework of sacksewing whlcE succeeded and lasted up to eight o'clock.

Then each prisoner was locked into her cell for the night, hard work and the solitary system being beautifully combined at St. Genevieve, and Lillian forgot to wonder and to shudder at the fate of No. 42, in the sudden realisation of all the misery of her own.

How had it happened that -h;, Lillian Trent should Have been accused of theft, that the diamond ear-ring, wRIeR so mysteriously ilisappeared in the jeweller's shop, should actually have been discovered in the pocket of her coat? It seemed like some fearful dream.

She sat on the edge of her trucklebed clasping her knees with her hands, and looked back over the three months which she had passed in Paris as governess to the two little children of Madame Ralli, a wealthy American woman, widow of of a Greek Jew. It was Lillian's first situation, and in the beginning she had believed she was going to be very happy in the beautiful house overlooking the Pare Monceau, in a family where the children were pretty and interesting, the mother appeared kind-hearted, and money was evidently of no., consideration. Everyone in Madame Ralli's household had all that anyone could desire in the way of luxury and amuse* ment; there were constant dinners and dances, at which Lillian Trent was invited to assist, and almost daily excursions to the Bois on the beautiful Panhard motor-car which Madame Ralli was accustomed to drive herself.

But during the first week of Lillian's arrival something happened which was destined to exercise an evil influence over her relations with her employer. Sir Claude Conway, a handsome Englishman, and a great friend of the lady's, turned up unexpectedly to dinner, and, to her unconcealed annoyance, betrayed how much the pretty young English governess attracted him and pleased him.

Lillian had responded to his attentions with innocent pleasure, as a young girl will, with smiles, a sparkling eye, and a varying color; until she suddenly jjrew conscious of Madame Ralli's malevolent gaze fixed upon her, and she stopped short in the middle of a sentence, feeling too certain she was in disgrace. "For the future," Madame Ralli had said to her, significantly, next day, "you will dine in your own room,'* and Lillian realised with astonishment that her employer was jealous, although she might have been less surprised had she heard Conway's eager inquiries after her.

She only saw him once-again, and that by accident, as she walked with - her pupils in the gardens of the Tuilleries. But when that evening in Lillian's presence the little girls' told their mother how the English Mvlord" had played with them that afternoon, and talked "ever so long" with "Mademoiselle Mees," Madame Ralli shot the girl a look of such venomous hatred as almost to turn her side

Then came the expedition with madame and the children to the jeweller's shop in the Rue de la Paix; the diamond solitaires which were inspected and priced; the sudden, "inexplicable disappearance of one of them; the hubbub which this excited ; and the final discovery of the missing jewel in the pocket of Lillian's coat.

After this the dream became a nightmare, and policemen, judges, advocates, the jeweller, Madame Ralli, and the diamonds, whirled confusedly through, until the poor child woke up, so to speak, in the Penetentiary of St. Genevjeve with three years' solitude, silence, and sunlessness lying Before her. Yet. she had never so much •as touched the diamond, and when Madame Ralli had suggested that the detective should search Miss Trent's

*oat-with-pr^ddisdain of such aj^ftuf,celHifcfe aArapped w^cfca^ suspicion; but/wlfHout the smallest turt,^ overset tbe^watfef-pitclieir and' misgivings. ' one . was more broke it^ trampled the bread underthunderstruck thaa Herself when the, foot,- and finally fell into "a-swooiT missing stone was extracted from on the floor. the inside pocket, . , " When she came to herself she Madame Raih, indeed seemed- was the occupant of one of the many less surprised than triumphant, and beds in a huge whitewashed room, Lillian reccing now that look won- the infirmary of the prison. She dered whether the jewel could have felt faint and weak wh sh been put into her coat-pocket by Ma- ra ised her hand to her head she dame Rail, herself. found it covered whh Uncn ban . cfages. She heard as if from a great disance, two persons talking about her. ''How did it happen?" said one. "She must have fallen and cut her head open on a piece of the pitcher which she had broken," said the other, whom Lillian recognised, by the voice as being Mother Jane. "How long had she.been in?" ■'Not more than a quarter of an hour at the very most, for I was waiting in the ante-room just to hear how she enjoyed it, and when she tired of begging and praying to belet put, and howling like a mad thing, there came the crash of the pitcher. 'All right, my dear, you can just go thirsty,* said I to myself, and then T heard the thud of her fall. I guessed she had fainted, they generally do a_t first, so I lighted the candle again thinking I would take a peep at her, but I saw immediately a dark stream running out from under the door, and discovered that the little idiot was unconscious and bleeding like a pig. I ran to tell Reverend Mother,, and she sent the doctor down, and he, being a soft-hearted nincompoop, had my young lady brought up here. But, so soon as she is sufficiently recovered, back she goes into the darkness again to live her punishment through; of that you may be sure."

Twice every day all the prisoners were marched down to the chapel,; in the morning at half-past five to hear' Mass, and in the afternoon at half-past three to attend the service of Benediction. Lillian not only did not understand these services, but did not want to understand fnem or to follow them at all, and her compulsory presence seemed but an aggravation of her unhappy plight. "Bow your head," commanded a nun pushing her roughly on the back of the neck, and she found herself expected to do,as the others did, and bow her head almost to the ground at the tinkle of the sanctuary bell.

But she could not imitate the theatrical veneration of those who, as they doubled themselves^up at thissolemn moment, generally managed to exchange winks and words with their neighbours, nor would she cross herself with Holy water on entering and leaving the chapel, as to her mind this was but a piece of foolish superstition. One morning as she sat pricking her fingers over the horrible sackmaking, she was surprised by a summons to the Reverend Mother's room. The Superior of the Order of St. Genevieve was a woman of over 60 years of age, upright, of commanding presence, with an unctuous man" ncr and ruthless eye. Lillian, who knew her well by sight, yet had never been addressed by her, feared this woman instinctively more than any of the other nuns. "Number 67," began the Superior in a honeyed voice, "I hear with great pain that your behaviour in the chapel shows neither reverence nor decency. Is that so?" "No," replied Lillian, timidly. "I behave, I hope, with perfect reverence, but I am not a Roman Catholic, and so— —" "And so," interrupted the Su: perior, "you admit your offence. I Mother Jane has already spoken to you on the subject many times, but it seems that you are of a sulky, obstinate disposition on which forbearance, is thrown away. We must try other measures, my child." She spoke very gently, as a real mother might speak to her little_ girl for the child's good. "We will give you—let me see —forty-eight hours of the punishment cell, that you may have tranquillity and leisure in which to reflect on your conduct, and to make good resolutions for the future."

Down to the very bowels of the building Lillian was taken, along obscure corridors lighted dimly by tiny jets of gas, into a sort of antechamber which was not lighted at ►all. Through a mere slit which had been fashioned high up in the thick wall a feeble gleam of. daylight struggled down, and was just sufficient to enable Mother Jane to find an end of candle and a box of matches placed ready for her in a niche.

Having Kghted a candle, she opened a low, massive door, which Lillian had not hitherto perceived in the wall, and revealed a cell about six feet square. It contained no furniture whatever, not even a bench; nothing but a pitcher of water and a piece of bread put down upon the stone floor.

Mother Jane, standing at the entrance with the light raised so as to illuminate the bare walls, turned with a look of satisfied tyranny in her eyes, and told Lillian to walk in. ■ '

The - girl obeyed. The door closed on her with a reverberating slam. .

No one who has not lived through even half-an-hour of the dark cell can form an idea of the agony of the experience. The more sensitive the mind, the more horrible it suffers. There are cases in which this suffering is so acute, so beyond all human endurance, that Nature comes to the victims aid, a cord snaps in tfie brain, and henceforth the poor wretcn is mad. But until that happy consumation is reached a second seems a year; five minutes an eternity. Lillian stood for a moment feeling the darkness with her hands, so to speak, drawing it with every breath. Then the horror overcame her, and she flung herself against the door. She would worship in the way they required, she would do anything in the world if they would but let her out. Her piteous appeal woke the echoes in her cell, but brought no other response.

Her brain reeled. She clasped her head between her hands and wondered if she could Iceep sane; She said the Lord's Prayer; she tried to repeat,by heart all the poetry she knew; she set herself the task of counting up to a thousand; something, anytfiing to calm her mind. And she had not got mo the second hundred before her endurance broke down. She" could not remember whether it was day or night, whet ther she had been shut Tip "months or minutes. Her screams terrified

"Never, never!" cried Lillian to herself. "I will die sooner." Yet how to avoid it? There was one way only. She must escape from the prison, and now, while she enjoyed the comparative freedom of the infirmary, was her only chance. Though feeling physically weak her wits v were singularly alert. Her half-shut eyes noticed every detail in the room. There were twenty beds in the infirmary ranged ten along either wall. Of these only seven or eight were occupied. At either end of the room was a bed completely screened in by curtains, one for each of the two nuns who nursed and guarded the prisoners. The screened bed furthest from Lillian belonged to Mother Teresa of the Holy Sepulchre, the elderly nun she had heard talking with Mother Jane. The other, which stood nearest the door, belonged to SisteV Veronica, the young nun whom Lillian had first seen in the wardrobe-room on the day of her entrance into St. Genevieve. Sister Veronica aided Mother Teresa in the work. The infirmary had eight windows, securely barred on the outside. The door locked itself automatically as it closed, and could only be opened by a passe-partout key, such as each of the gaoler-nuns possessed. But even supposing that she. managed to purloin one of these keys, Lillian knew that her difficulties would only then begin; for she would have to get down the big staircase unperceived, past the work-rooms on the second floor,, past the refectory on the first floor, to the central hall, whence a covered passage led to the portress's lodge, and the great outer door upon the street. If only she could gain the street she would be free. But how to gain it? How to pass the portress?. How to obtain the key? And, besides, she had no clothes; she had been undressed while unconscious and her clothes removed. They were nowhere to be seen. Even were she to find them, they would be useless; those conspicuous prison garments would only cause her to be arrested by the first sergeant-de-ville she met. While she wearied her aching head with thinking over ways and means, No. 42 came into the infirmary carrying a large basket containing the two nuns' change of things. Lillian remembered it was Saturday, and that on Sunday all the community put on clean linen and fine veils arid gowns. "So you're out of -the black hole?" whispered No. 42, as she passed Lillian's bed. "You have luck! I'd sooner walk straight to the guillotine than be sent there again." Though she spoke in the lowest possible voice, and hardly stopped an instant to do so, the practiced eye of old Mother Teresa, who sat saying her rosary on a chair drawn out in front of her bed-curtains, detected at once that she was speaking.

"Forty-two,- a bad mark,'' she answered, and produced her pocketbook to note down the:offence. A certain number of bad marks during the week entailed" punishment at the week's end. ' The dark, wrinkled face of No. 42 resumed'its habitual expression of sullen apathy, and she went on with her basket. She deposited Sister Veronica's clothes on the chair beSund the bed, walked up- the room to the other end with Mother Teresa's, and came back again with the basket empty. At that moment the old nun's attenron was claimed by a consumptive prisbner begging for water. /'Shall I see you again to-night?" Lilian ventured to say as No. 42 passed her.

;;"Teltlme . you by,*'; Lilian asjk|dr~:^ ■ M :<M^^\

:;v!Ti(e|:]p66r Cr^ture|ipolt(E!(i ;atJheyr with iah-expressioii of woe. W'\..>.;.. •;./-■:'■'■'■\ ::^5; ;;-:-'\-~P:^* yji

"I---I have forgotten it; I h^ye been here so long—so -lohg-^rriore^ than thirty years v '^ and with trembling mouth which muttereid' and worked she hurried away. ~ There was just one bri^f half-hour in "the whole twenty-four-" hours of the day and night when the infirmary was left without surveillance, when the portress left her gate. This was the" half-hour of Mass. When, therefore, to-morrow morning Mother Teresa and Sister Veronica should depart, leaving tKeir patients presumably asleep, Lilian would get up, and, concealed from the rest of the room behind Sister Veronica's .bed-curtains, dress herself in Sister Veronica's week-day clothes, hidden beneath the bed by No. 42's friendly fingers. Fortunately, Lilian and Sister Veronica were about the same height, and evtfn their features were not very j dissimilar. Dressed in the same garments, and, seen from a little distance, one might well pass for the other. But during the half-hour of mass, Lilian knew there was really very little chance of meeting anyone in the corridors or staircases.

All night Lilian lay awake, with closed eyes. The two nuns had come to bed; No. 42 had made her second round; the patients had taken their last doses or drinks, and now, in their dreams, were again innocent, and happy, and free. The hours chimed from the prison clock and the clocks of the city. The black night outside the tall, curtained windows grew less dense, paled to a wan grey, woke to the faint gleams of an early morning sky. ' > " Three—four—five o'clock rang out; and five o'clock was immediately followed by the bell, far away in the centre of the prison, summoning the prisoners to arise. Behind the screened beds mouselike sounds were heard as the nuns washed and dressed themselves.

Two black and white figures, treading silently on felt slippers, passed down the room, and the door closed softly Behind thejn. The critical moment was come!

Instantly Lilian slipped from her bed, and, unperceived by anyone, reached the shelter of Sister Veronica's^ curtains. She stood there holding her breath with fear, but no one itirred, and then this fear was driven out by a new one.

Suppose No> 42 had repented and carried away the clothes after all? Even while the horrid thought shook her soul, her. groping hand had come into contact with the serge gown, the starched linen beneath the valence, and in another instant her swift fingers were tying knots1, fixing wimple and coif, and pinning the black veil on to the stiff white, head-band.

A wonderfully close imitation of Sister Veronica 'stepped lightly from fbehind the bed curtains to the door. With noiseless fingers Lilian turned the handle—and the door did not yield! Her heart seemed to stop beating as she remembered that every time the door shut it locked itself automatically and must be re-opened with a key! ' She was lost!

She gave a desperate glance at the windows, realised that escape thereby was out of the question, and rummaged without any hope in the capacious pocket of the nun's gown. Sister Veronica had forgotten to empty it, and it contained a pocket-handkerchief, large and coarse as a duster, a brass thimble, a huswife, a breviary, covered in black cashmere, with an elastic binding in its fatness, and keeping the holy pictures from falling out, and down in the very depths lay something hard and cold. Lilian drew it out. It was the key.

111. . Sir Claude Conway reached Madame Ralli's house in time for a nine-o'clock breakfast on Sunday morning, for she had arranged with him an expedition to Orleans on her fine new Panhard motor-car. The little girls were to be taken, too, to play propriety, and Sir Claude was to be introduced to certain of Madame Ralli's relatives living at Orleans, on whom she wished to pass him off as her fiance. She imagined that if she could only compromise him sufficiently in the eyes of I her family, he might, really, at last, | be driven to make her his wife; j arid, bad-hearted and wicked woman as she was, she nevertheless loved the handsome Englishman, who was so honorable, so generous, so kind to everyone he met, as much as her cold and narrow na<ture was capable of loving. He was the only man, she told herself, whom she had really cared for in all her life. . There was on© subject, however, on which, when it was broached, she could not keep her temper with I him. This was the subject of Lilian Trent. It was in vain that she had told him the girl was a worthless, ungrateful, insoJpNS^Je creature, who b*d thro\« -T^;4u-

ation at-a mpnient's t»ti<» in a fitof ca-price, England,, /^here^^rere^^i^^^p cies in the_sto>y^-foirg©dMt^^f^|^^ ili, witho«t : -^iue^cw»sid|^^^f! which did not{ escape'^his^-n^^^^l PresseS by his! questions'||p|pe|| Elysee ball, where they had^metN eath other tite previous night, she had given him answers which in nowise fitted with her earlier accounts/ His suspicions that there was something sinister in the affair grew stronger, and Ke felt he could not rest until he knew the whole truth.

"You told me last night," said he, as he sat down to breakfast with her and the children in the brilliant, sunny apartments overlooking the Pare Monceau, "you told me Miss Trent left you without so much as saying good-bye, or applying for her salary. Yet you had said the other day that she was so poor she used even to borrow postage stamps from Cecile, here. How, in that case, did she manage; to pay her passage to England?"

"You seem to take a tremendous interest in my discharged governess," Madame Ralli, bitterly. "Lately you can talk of nothing else." . ■■.-.:.

"Yes, I do take ah immense interest in her," Conway confessed. "All the more, perhaps, that you tell me something different concerning her every time you open your lips. Hitherto you have said that she left you of her own accord, without • even saying good-bye. Now you speak of having discharged her." An ugly light glittered in Madame Ralli.'s fine eyes. "Would you like to know the real truth?" she said.

"I desire nothing so much." "Then she neither left me voluntarily nor did* I discharge her. She was taken away by the police. The girl who interests you so much is in prison. What for? For the vulgar, common theft of a diamond. Will I tell you the whole story? Certainly I will, with great pleasure," sneered Madame Ralli, and she told it with evident enjoyment and infinite detail. The children hung on their, mother's words with eager faces, and forgot to eat. "The diamond was found in the girl's pocket," concluded Madame Ralli, and no one but herself, I imagine, could have put it there." "Oh, mammie, I put it there, you know I did!" cried Cecile's little, piping, reproachful voice. "You gave it to me, and told me to put it into the pocket of Mademoiselle Mees, as a surprise for her." Madame Ralli turned ghastly white, but said, with a gay little laugh: "You're a silly little child, and Sir Claude knows Better than to listen to your, nonsense." But Conway, glancing from the woman's guilty, tell-tale face into the pure, limpid eyes of the little girl, knew in an instant that he had found the truth. He pushed back his chair, and rose. ■. ,

"This must be investigated at once," he pronounced. "If you take a single step," cried Madame Raili, with virulence, "you shall never see me again!" He turned upon her with frowning, dark blue eyes. "Perhaps," said he, significantly, "that might be the best thing for us—both." And he went out of the room and down the velvet-carpeted staircase in a tumult of emotion. Outside the porte cochere glittering in the sunshine was the beautiful Panhard car, all crimson lacquer and shining brass, quivering, with the speed pent up in its mental veins. The mechanician sat ready with folded arms. The expedition is off," Conway told him, Briefly. "Go up and get Madame Ralli's orders about the car, and send someone down at once to look after it, for I cannot stay." He stayed a moment, however, gnawing at his moustache, and muttering words which seemed to burn the air. His wide open, angry eyes, which saw nothing actual, rested unconsciously on the person of a little nun hastening timidly up the street. Her gown, and cloak, and hood, drawn well over her face, made a blot of black upon thfl sunny scene. She seemed to be making for the Ralli mansion, but he never realised her presence, and was on the point of turning away, when she suddenly stopped in front of him, and lifted a piteous gaze to his. "Save me!" she said, "I am innocent . . . I have just escaped from prison. Don't you remember me? lam Lilian Trent. For Heaven's sake help me to get away to England." "You!" You!" he stammered. "Poor child! I have only i-' heard the truth—-a most hop plot—a mdst imfamous pv*'work; but—" £* "I came here to finr 5/ " l chambermaid," she^" ' Elise was gfood-natjf no one else in P? she would lend: r| f fare to London & St. Lazare —the ti/" Gonway pulled/ "Two minut^" * has startetjf. " a moment/^ -"""-_ - . odd, inco/ \ ~^

IpSipiiiiiPSi ®!lnf£^bni^ little nun into the motor-car, and with a touch of the levers, the Panhard was flying up the Avenue Hoche towards the Etoile. An expert motorist, with one hand he guided the car, with the other helped Lilian to put on the leather coat and silk mask and nood_ which awaited Madame Ralli on the seat; then he drew on his own, produced a pair, of goblin motor spectacles from his pocket, and now completely disguised the two went fearlessly forward. Down the avenue of the Grande Armee, out by the Porte Maillot over the Pont de'Suresnes, through St. Germairi-en-Laye, and so on to Mantes and Rouen. -■v-At the end of the first kilometre, the car had already attained its maximum speed of seventy miles an hour, and Lilian had gained a new conception of the possibilities of motion It appeared to her as if the whole of. the landscape ahead of them was wheeling together alon ff convergent lines, which then raced £m meet, i hem- T«*s, houses, fields, reeled at them, shot by, were spread out behind them in everwidening fans. The pace was almost terrifying It completely took away the girl's breath. Once she gasped ouf to ncr companion was it necessary to go so fast; With set teeth he shouted yes, or they would lose the He did not add that if the boat were lost all would be up. Every chance of escape for her would be gone Even now he could not feel sure that they might not both be arrested at their journey's end She spoke again as they went through R OU en, some admiring word on the old-world beauty o f the town, but he bent down and called out to her. win^iV 1™""1 v° an>t a«end-we will talk upon the boat." Then Rouen flashed into the background and Maromme was reached, and from Maromme they ran £ rOUA gt T°teS ' and from Totes to St Aubin-sur-Scie. Then came an intoxicating spin down the beautiful slopes into Dieppe Conway slowed down an instant as they entered the suburbs to stop at a garage and take on a mechanician in whose care he could leave the car, after which he pressed on at high speed for the harbour. The steamer vvas actually just slipping her moorings when a tall, dirty, dust-grimed motorist hailed the captain in a voice which he fortunately knew well, and the Arundel was stopped, and her screw reversed Her passengers watched with interest the readjustment of the gangway, and the passage across it of two strangely-clothed, completely disguised figures, "a W goggle-eyed demon," as one lady ex pressed it, "and a hooded, little

gnome." This curious pair entered a deckcabin, and except by the steward who carried them in a pleasant little dinner were seen no more during the crossing. Then, when Newhaven was reached, everyone was too engrossed in his own preparations for the Customs House to have a thought to spare for the occupants of .the deck-cabin, otherwise they would have been astonished to perceive when the door opened that a tall and handsome Englishman emerged accompanied by a. brilliant, smiling little nun. Was it the architectural information he had given her on the churches of Rouen which had brought that lovely colour to her cheeks? As neither he nor she had any luggage, not even hand-bags they were allowed to pass at once to the train, where a gold-piece to the guard from Conway secured them a carriage to themselves. But the tall Englishman standing at the carriage door did not at once get m. "I am going to bring you a cud of tea," said he. "And don't you think that at the same time you might send a wire to Madame Ralli about the car?" suggested the little nun. "She must be so uneasy." "What if she is?" retorted the Englishman. "She ha s made you suffer a great deal more than uneasiness during the last few weeks and never turned a hair." ' "All the same, I should think it fcnost awfully nice of you if you would wire," coaxed the liti-J^.^-^* smiling up'at hin>-S*. -"""^ blue eyes; and J* " wire wa«s V"" ' ' It*, er ' - '\' ■ . f