matter of fact, looked no different after a night at sea to what she had
looked in the drawing-room of the Baroness de Melide. She was too old or
too tough to take her colour from her environments. She was standing with
her back towards the quay, talking to the steward, and did not,
therefore, see the colonel until the clank of his spurred heel on the
deck made her turn sharply.

"You, mademoiselle!" exclaimed the colonel, on seeing her face as he
stood, _kepi_ in hand, staring at her in astonishment.

"Yes; I am the ogre chosen by Fate to watch over Denise Lange," she
answered, holding out her withered hand.

"But this is indeed a pleasure," said the colonel, with his ready smile.
"I came by a mere accident to offer my services, as any Frenchman would,
to ladies arriving at such a place as Bastia, as a friend, moreover, of
Mattel Perucca, and never expected to see a face I knew. It is years,
mademoiselle, since we met--since before the war--before Solferino."

"Yes," said Mademoiselle Brun; "since before Solferino."

And she glanced suspiciously at him, as if she had something to hide. A
chance word often is the "open sesame" to that cupboard where we keep our
cherished skeleton. Colonel Gilbert saw the quick glance, and
misconstrued it.

"I wrote a letter some time ago," he said, "to Mademoiselle Lange, making
her an offer for her property, little dreaming that I had so old a friend
as yourself at hand, as one may say, to introduce us to each other."