“Oh, but at the time Anna was very much impressed,” said Sylvia, quickly.  “Far more than I was—­I know it made her nervous when she was first playing at the tables.  And when she lost so much money the first week we were here she said to me, ’That woman was right.  We ought not to have come to Lacville!’ But afterwards, when she began to be so wonderfully lucky, she forgot all about it, or, rather, she only remembered that the woman had said to her that she would have a great run of luck.”

“Then the woman said that, too,” remarked Count Paul, absently.

(What was it his godmother had said?  “I felicitate you on your conquest, naughty Paul!” and he had felt angry, even disgusted, with the old lady’s cynical compliment.  She had added, meaningly, “Why not turn over a new leaf?  Why not marry this pretty creature?  We should all be pleased to see you behave like a reasonable human being.”)

But Sylvia was answering him.

“Yes, the woman said that Anna would be very lucky.”

The Comte de Virieu thought for a moment, and then withdrew his eyes from his friend’s face.

“I presume you have already telephoned to the hotel in Paris where you first met Madame Wolsky?”

“Why, it never occurred to me to do that!” cried Sylvia.  “What a good idea!”

“Wait,” he said.  “I will go and do it for you.”

But five minutes later he came back, shaking his head.  “I am sorry to say the people at the Hotel de l’Horloge know nothing of Madame Wolsky.  They have had no news of her since you and she both left the place.  I wonder if the Wachners know more of her disappearance than they have told you?”

“What do you mean?” asked Sylvia, very much surprised.

“They’re such odd people,” he said, in a dissatisfied voice.  “And you know they were always with your friend.  When you were not there, they hardly ever left her for a moment.”

“But I thought I had told you how distressed they are about it?  How they waited for her last evening and how she never came?  Oh no, the Wachners know nothing,” declared Sylvia confidently.

CHAPTER XVI

There is something very bewildering and distressing in the sudden disappearance or even the absence of a human being to whose affectionate and constant presence one has become accustomed.  And as the hours went by, and no letter or message arrived from Anna Wolsky, Sylvia became seriously troubled, and spent much of her time walking to and from the Pension Malfait.

Surely Anna could not have left Paris, still less France, without her luggage?  All sorts of dreadful possibilities crowded on Sylvia’s mind; Anna Wolsky might have met with an accident:  she might now be lying unidentified in a Paris hospital....

At last she grew so uneasy about her friend that she felt she must do something!

Mine host of the Villa du Lac was kind and sympathetic, but even he could suggest no way of finding out where Anna had gone.