‘Well, there are none but English at Biarritz at this season.’

’She was never English.  Don’t try to bully me.  Besides, she evidently knew the country.  Otherwise, how could she have found the Sentier des Contrebandiers?—­She wasn’t from Granjolaye?’

‘There’s no one at Granjolaye save the Queen herself.’

’Deceiver!  Manuela told me last night.  She has her little Court, her maids-of-honour.  I think my inconnue looked like a maid-of-honour.’

’She has her aunt, old Mademoiselle Henriette, and a couple of German women, countesses or baronesses or something, with unpronounceable names.’

’I can’t believe she’s German.  Still, I suppose there are some Christian Germans.  Perhaps....’

‘They’re both middle-aged.  Past fifty, I should think.’

’Oh.—­Ah, well, that disposes of them.  But how do you know her Majesty hasn’t a friend, a guest, staying with her?’

’It’s possible, but most unlikely, seeing the close retirement in which she lives.  She’s never once gone beyond her garden, since she came back there, three, four, years ago; nor received any visitors. Personne—­not the Bishop of Bayonne nor the Sous-Prefet, not even feu Monsieur le Comte, though they all called, as a matter of civility.  She has her private chaplain.  If a guest had arrived at Granjolaye, the whole country would know it and talk of it.’

‘Oh, I see what you’re trying to insinuate,’ cried Paul.  ’You’re trying to insinuate that she came from Chateau Yroulte.’  That was the next nearest country-house.

‘Nothing of the sort,’ said Andre.  ’Chateau Yroulte has been shut up and uninhabited these two years—­ever since the death of old Monsieur Raoul.  It was bought by a Spanish Jew; but he’s never lived in it and never let it.’

’Well, then, where did she come from?  Not out of the Fourth Dimension?  Who was she?  Not a wraith, an apparition?  Why will you entertain such weird conjectures?’

‘She must have come from Bayonne.  An officer’s wife, beyond a doubt.’

‘Oh, you’re perfectly remorseless,’ sighed Paul, and changed the subject.  But he was unconvinced.  Officers’ wives, in garrison-towns like Bayonne, had, in his experience, always been, as he expressed it, frowsy and provincial.

IV.

One would think, by this time, the priest, poor man, had earned a moment of mental rest; but Paul’s thirst for knowledge was insatiable.  He began to ply him with questions about the Queen.  And though Andre could tell him very little, and though he had heard all that the night before from Manuela, it interested him curiously to hear it repeated.