"I am very sorry. I was as quiet as I could be. I could not sleep."

"Why?" Mrs. Thesiger repeated the question with insistence. "Why couldn't
you sleep?"

"We are traveling to Chamonix," replied Sylvia. "I have been thinking of
it all night," and though she smiled in all sincerity, Mrs. Thesiger
doubted. She lay silent for a little while. Then she said, with a
detachment perhaps slightly too marked:

"We left Trouville in a hurry yesterday, didn't we?"

"Yes," replied Sylvia, "I suppose we did," and she spoke as though this
was the first time that she had given the matter a thought.

"Trouville was altogether too hot," said Mrs. Thesiger; and again silence
followed. But Mrs. Thesiger was not content. "How much does she know?"
she speculated again, and was driven on to find an answer. She raised
herself upon her elbow, and while rearranging her pillow said carelessly:

"Sylvia, our last morning at Trouville you were reading a book which
seemed to interest you very much."

"Yes."

Sylvia volunteered no information about that book.

"You brought it down to the sands. So I suppose you never noticed a
strange-looking couple who passed along the deal boards just in front of
us." Mrs. Thesiger laughed and her head fell back upon her pillow. But