‘I immediately proposed to see Mrs. James,’ Lady Montbarry continued, ’and to thank her personally for her extreme kindness.  But I was informed that she had gone out, without leaving word at what hour she might be expected to return.  I have written a little note of thanks, saying that we hope to have the pleasure of personally expressing our sense of Mrs. James’s courtesy to-morrow.  In the mean time, Agnes, I have ordered your boxes to be removed downstairs.  Go!—­and judge for yourself, my dear, if that good lady has not given up to you the prettiest room in the house!’

With those words, Lady Montbarry left Miss Lockwood to make a hasty toilet for dinner.

The new room at once produced a favourable impression on Agnes.  The large window, opening into a balcony, commanded an admirable view of the canal.  The decorations on the walls and ceiling were skilfully copied from the exquisitely graceful designs of Raphael in the Vatican.  The massive wardrobe possessed compartments of unusual size, in which double the number of dresses that Agnes possessed might have been conveniently hung at full length.  In the inner corner of the room, near the head of the bedstead, there was a recess which had been turned into a little dressing-room, and which opened by a second door on the inferior staircase of the hotel, commonly used by the servants.  Noticing these aspects of the room at a glance, Agnes made the necessary change in her dress, as quickly as possible.  On her way back to the drawing-room she was addressed by a chambermaid in the corridor who asked for her key.  ‘I will put your room tidy for the night, Miss,’ the woman said, ‘and I will then bring the key back to you in the drawing-room.’

While the chambermaid was at her work, a solitary lady, loitering about the corridor of the second storey, was watching her over the bannisters.  After a while, the maid appeared, with her pail in her hand, leaving the room by way of the dressing-room and the back stairs.  As she passed out of sight, the lady on the second floor (no other, it is needless to add, than the Countess herself) ran swiftly down the stairs, entered the bed-chamber by the principal door, and hid herself in the empty side compartment of the wardrobe.  The chambermaid returned, completed her work, locked the door of the dressing-room on the inner side, locked the principal entrance-door on leaving the room, and returned the key to Agnes in the drawing-room.

The travellers were just sitting down to their late dinner, when one of the children noticed that Agnes was not wearing her watch.  Had she left it in her bed-chamber in the hurry of changing her dress?  She rose from the table at once in search of her watch; Lady Montbarry advising her, as she went out, to see to the security of her bed-chamber, in the event of there being thieves in the house.  Agnes found her watch, forgotten on the toilet table, as she had anticipated.  Before leaving the room again she acted on Lady Montbarry’s advice, and tried the key in the lock of the dressing-room door.  It was properly secured.  She left the bed-chamber, locking the main door behind her.