end they decided that Ste. Marie should go alone, but that he was to
telegraph, later on, if the clew looked promising. Hartley had two or
three investigations on foot in Paris, and stayed on to complete these.
Also he wished, as soon as possible, to see Helen Benham and explain
Ste. Marie's ride on the galloping pigs. Ten days had elapsed since that
evening, but Miss Benham had gone into the country the next day to make
a visit at the De Saulnes' château on the Oise.

So Ste. Marie packed a portmanteau with clothes and things, and departed
by a mid-afternoon train to Dinard, and toward five Richard Hartley
walked down to the rue de I'Université. He thought it just possible that
Miss Benham might by now have returned to town, but if not he meant to
have half an hour's chat with old David Stewart, whom he had not seen
for some weeks.

At the door he learned that mademoiselle was that very day returned and
was at home. So he went in to the drawing-room, reserving his visit to
old David until later. He found the room divided into two camps. At one
side Mrs. Benham conversed in melancholic monotones with two elderly
French ladies who were clad in depressing black of a dowdiness surpassed
only in English provincial towns. It was as if the three mourned
together over the remains of some dear one who lay dead among them.
Hartley bowed low, with an uncontrollable shiver, and turned to the
tea-table, where Miss Benham sat in the seat of authority, flanked by a
young American lady whom he had met before, and by Baron de Vries, whom
he had not seen since the evening of the De Saulnes' dinner-party.

Miss Benham greeted him with evident pleasure, and to his great delight
remembered just how he liked his tea--three pieces of sugar and no milk.
It always flatters a man when his little tastes of this sort are