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THE STRAND MAGAZINE.

His hearers laughed, and I had to laugh—he had such a comical way of telling a story—but I laughed with rather a wry face. I had no doubt that Mrs. Everard Brookes, and Miss Marianne Tracy, and Mrs. Alexander King were one and the same person. The audacity of the creature was almost incredible! I believe I should have come across to them and told them so, only just then my friend came up and insisted upon bearing me off without giving me chance to explain.

A few days afterwards I was in Bond Street, when a beautifully-attired lady came out of a shop, and stopped to stare at me. I could not believe my eyes—it was Marianne Tracy, though transformed into quite another being. Her coolness was almost supernatural.

"It is Miss Lee, isn't it? I thought it was. I'm so glad to have met you."

That was all she said, in the sweetest tone of voice. Then she got into a gorgeous motor-car, which I had been conscious had been standing at the kerb, and as she pulled the door to she leaned over and said:—

"By the way, how did you enjoy that little trip to sea?"

Before I could answer the car was off. What was I to do? I could not run after it; it was lost in the traffic before I had got my Illustration of Judith facing a woman seated in the back of an open-topped automobile
"By the way, how did you enjoy that little trip to sea?" wits about me. I could not give a description of the car—I had scarcely noticed it; I was not sure either of the shape or colour. That woman had slipped through my fingers, merely because her presence of mind was greater than mine. If I had only kept my head enough to take her by the throat in the middle of Bond Street!

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