“Left Lacville!” repeated Chester incredulously.  “But that’s impossible!  It isn’t more than three hours since we said good-bye to her at the station.  She had no intention of leaving Lacville then.  Do you say you’ve received a letter from her?”

“Yes, M’sieur.”

“Will you please show it me?”

“Certainly, M’sieur.”

M. Polperro, followed closely by the Englishman, trotted off into his office, a funny little hole of a place which had been contrived under the staircase.  It was here that Madame Polperro was supposed to spend her busy days.

M. Polperro felt quite lost without his wife.  Slowly, methodically, he began to turn over the papers on the writing-table, which, with one chair, filled up all the place.

There had evidently been a lovers’ quarrel between these two peculiar English people.  What a pity that the gentleman, who had very properly returned to beg the lady’s pardon, had found his little bird flown—­in such poetic terms did the landlord in his own mind refer to Sylvia Bailey.

The pretty Englishwoman’s presence in the Villa du Lac had delighted M. Polperro’s southern, sentimental mind; he felt her to be so decorative, as well as so lucrative, a guest for his beloved hotel.  Mrs. Bailey had never questioned any of the extras Madame Polperro put in her weekly bills, and she had never become haggard and cross as other ladies did who lost money at the Casino.

As he turned over the papers—­bills, catalogues, and letters with which the table was covered, these thoughts flitted regretfully through M. Polperro’s mind.

But he had an optimistic nature, and though he was very sorry Madame Bailey had left the Villa du Lac so abruptly, he was gratified by the fact that she had lived up to the ideal he had formed of his English guest.  Though Madame Bailey had paid her weekly bill only two days before—­she was en pension by the day—­she had actually sent him a hundred francs to pay for the two days’ board; the balance to be distributed among the servants....

There could surely be no harm in giving this big Englishman the lady’s letter?  Still, M. Polperro was sorry that he had not Madame Polperro at his elbow to make the decision for him.

“Here it is,” he said at last, taking a piece of paper out of the drawer.  “I must have put it there for my wife to read on her return.  It is a very gratifying letter—­M’sieur will see that for himself!”

Chester took the folded-up piece of notepaper out of the little Frenchman’s hand with a strange feeling of misgiving.

He came out into the hall and stood under the cut-glass chandelier—­

“You have made a mistake,” he exclaimed quickly; “this is not Mrs. Bailey’s handwriting!”

“Oh, yes, M’sieur, it is certainly Mrs. Bailey’s letter.  You see there is the lady’s signature written as plainly as possible!”

Chester looked down to where the man’s fat finger pointed.