unlike her placid smiling self, for her face looked red and puffy. But
still she nodded pleasantly to Chester.

It seemed to the lawyer inconceivable that this commonplace couple could
have seriously meant to rob their guest. But there was that letter--that
strange, sinister letter which purported to be from Sylvia! Who had
written that letter, and with what object in view?

Chester began to feel as if he was living through a very disagreeable,
bewildering nightmare. But no scintilla of the horrible truth reached
his cautious, well-balanced brain. The worst he suspected, and that only
because of the inexplicable letter, was that these people meant to
extract money from their guest and frighten her into leaving Lacville
the same night.

"Sylvia," he said rather shortly, "I suppose we ought to be going now. We
have a carriage waiting at the gate, so we shall be able to drive you
back to the Villa du Lac. But, of course, we must first pick up all your
pearls. That won't take long!"

But Sylvia made no answer. She did not even look round at him. She was
still staring straight before her, as if she saw something, which the
others could not see, written on the distempered wall.

L'Ami Fritz entered the room quietly. He looked even stranger than usual,
for while in one hand he held Mrs. Bailey's pretty black tulle hat and
her little bag, in the other was clutched the handle of a broom.

"I did not think you would want to go back into my wife's bed-room," he
said, deprecatingly; and Mrs. Bailey, at last turning her head round,