the whip-cracking, and the old jolting, jangling,
and general misery. Margaret felt no wish to
stop; she was only eager to get forward.

A bright day, but so long and weary!
Gilbert was right; that tedious imprisonment
would have worn his heart out. All that day
Margaret's veil was down; through its thick
folds, as she looked from the window on some
brief halt, she saw her enemy standing only a
foot away, his handsome but anxious eyes
resting on hers with the utmost unconsciousness;
she could actually smile behind its folds.
Some of the passengers wondered who the
veiled lady was: he was too absorbed. That
night, very late, they were clattering into Paris.
Their great vehicle rolled through the archway,
in the street of Our Lady of Victories,
where, to this day, we may see the yellow,
battered Messageries Impériales lying up in
ordinary, like old condemned frigates in dock.
Here she waited, her veil down, growing yet
more excited, and watched the travellers. She
and her enemy were under the same roof. It
was just midnight. The veiled lady, standing
by, saw the two go out. She saw them send
for a carriage, go in, and drive away. She was
standing by, and heard the direction given to the
coachman—" To Auteuil." Then the veiled
lady and her maid, besieged by obsequious
porters, were put into another carriage, and
drove away, also to Auteuil.

That was a long, long drive. Morning was
breaking. She saw the hills, and stiff flat French
country, like a scene in a play. The long road
sloped down and rose again for a mile and more,
like a narrow ribbon, and at the end of the ribbon
she could make out a little black dot, like a
beetle—the carriage which held her enemy. A
little beyond this place trees began to come more
thickly, and a few châteaux along the roadside.
At one of these her coachman, pulling up sharply,
told her the carriage had stopped. She looked
out, got down into the road, walked on a little,
looked round so as to know the marks again,
then bade him drive back to the inn of the
place. As the carriage turned round, she saw
the two little specs descend and pass in. There
was something dramatic in the utter
unconsciousness of the pursued.

In the morning she walked out along that
long road. She soon came to the place—
an old château, with great white gate, piers,
fine old trees, a long avenue, and a great yellow
building. It had not the air of nobility now,
and seemed like a school. She hesitated before
ringing the great bell at the gate, which was
flowery and foliated, according to the old
handsome pattern.

She suddenly heard steps, and saw a peasant
coming home singing, with a fork on his
shoulder. She stopped him.

"Could you tell me, my friend, whose is that
chateau house there?"

"Yonder, where the fiacre is? Fichtre! Don't
you know? Pray that you may never be inside
of it. It's Dr. Favre's maison de santé—the
madhouse."

The other was silent for a moment. " A
madhouse!" she repeated.

"Yes—for women. The Sisters of Charity
come and look after them. Oh, Dr. Favre is
very clever, and has sent away many cured.
They send them to him from all parts."

She cried out aloud (but there was no one
near to hear), " I have found it! Now we
shall see!"

The bell she rang clanged harshly, and after
a long, long time a strong-built man came slowly
down the avenue, and asked, through the gate,
what madame's business was. She had
arranged her plan in a moment, and said she
wished to speak to the principal about a
patient. The porter, blunt but civil, led her
into a cold gloomy parlour, and waited.

Dr. Favre's house had a kind of reputation
among physicians, as being in advance of the
barbarous treatment—chains, waistcoats—
then in fashion, and was known favourably even
to one or two humane English physicians. The
doctor himself, when he came in, seemed kind
and benevolent, but scanned her all over with
the professional scrutiny with which he
"diagnosed" patients.

She had a friend at home whom they were
thinking of placing—a dear, dear relation, for
whom she would give her life.

Dr. Favre, a really good man, was enthusiastic
about his system, and, above all, pleased
with English interest.

"Let me show you our place. I shall be
most proud to have your good report when you
go back to Great Britain. Fine country! I
was there once. A great people; and I hope to
extend my connexion with it. You know
Doctor Parkes, a man of great fame in my way.
He came over suddenly, and rang me up last
night, or rather this morning. I thought the
patients had organised an émeute."

Margaret asked eagerly, " Has he come about
a patient here?"

The doctor looked at her with sharp eyes.
"He is always coming backwards and forwards,"
he said, coldly. " He has sent me many
patients."

Though she had a sort of horror for the pitiful
scenes usually to be found in these places,
this was the price to be paid for the
discovery she had made. She had to spend an
hour and a half, with an air of interest, in
viewing the whole establishment, patients, &c.,
and to listen to all the details. The French
doctor had the true foreigner respect for the
grandeur of England as the land of inexhaustible
wealth, and was really anxious to impress
the stranger.

Again Margaret tried to get details.

"Now, what sort of cases have you here?
Have you any sick patients?"

"O yes," he said; " now and then. Here
are our prospectuses, and here is a little book
which gives the principles of our system. And
here, on this note-paper, is a picture of the
establishment. Well?"

A French sister here entered, and said, in a