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you like I can place you in possession of certain facts concerning that gentleman——"

I did not wait for him to finish. I got up and walked off, leaving my coffee and roll unfinished. I daresay if I had stopped to finish them he would have offered to sell me secrets about Mr. Armitage for five pounds apiece. I had an instinctive feeling that he was that kind of man.

It is quite the thing at Dieppe to go down to the quay to see the boat come in from Newhaven. After déjeuner, as there was a pretty stormy sea, I thought I would go and see what the passengers looked like. As I was going I fell in with Mrs. Curtis, one of the dearest old ladies I have ever met. She was an American, and, so far as I could make out, had been doing Europe very much on her own, although she had a husband who everybody said was a millionaire. It seemed that he was coming to Dieppe by that very boat.

"I haven't seen him," she told me, "for more than six months. He's so occupied with business that he hasn't time to spare for such a trifle as a wife, except between whiles. I understand that he's been making another million dollars. I wish he wouldn't; every fresh million he makes only seems to fill him with the desire to make more; and as we've neither kith nor kin, and are just a lonely old couple, what we're going to do with all the money I can't think."

It was a funny thing to say, but then people do say funny things, and there are such funny people, and so much of the world does seem queer. A few people have too much money and so many have nothing like enough—it's all a jumble.

When the boat drew up at the quay she began to wave her handkerchief with all her might to an elderly gentleman who stood on the deck, and he began to wave his to her; so I drew off in order that they might meet without being worried by a stranger. As I was strolling off the quay after most of the people had gone, a girl who had a small brown bag in her hand looked at me as if she wondered if I were very dreadful, and then, as if thinking that perhaps I was not, summoned up courage to speak to me.

"Can you tell me," she asked, "the name of a cheap and respectable hotel where—where I can go alone?"

I told her of one which I thought answered that description—I offered to show her where it was. She was quite the prettiest girl I had seen for ages, with a face, I thought, which had character and strength, as well as being good to look at. I fell in love with her at sight. She did not accept my offer to show her to the hotel, but she thanked me for giving her the name; and then, after favouring me with a further inspection, she made a remark which took me aback.

"I believe that in these foreign places, if they have been there any time, English people begin to know each other by name as well as by sight. Will you pardon my asking how long you've been here?" I told her. Then came a staggering question: "Can you tell me if there is now staying in Dieppe a gentleman named Cecil Armitage?"

I informed her that to the best of my knowledge and belief there certainly was. I do not know what there was in my tone which she resented, but there seemed to be something; because, barely thanking me, she gave me a cold little nod and walked on.

That evening, after dinner, I was sitting in the Casino gardens, when I saw a fragment of conversation between Mrs. Curtis and her newly-returned husband which both amazed and tickled me. I may say at once that, unless I blindfold myself, whether I want to or not I cannot help seeing what people are saying whenever I look out of my eyes. I was rather in the shadow, and they were in the full glare of the electric light, so that I could not help seeing them. The old lady was speaking when I saw them first.

"So you've been making more money?" she said; and as she said it she looked at her husband rather severely.

"I've been making a pile, Elinor; a regular pile. I wish money wasn't so easy to make, or that I hadn't the knack of making it."

As he said it, he looked to me as if he groaned. In spite of the severe expression on the old lady's face I daresay there was a twinkle in her eye.

"And what are you going to do with it now you've made it?"

"I'm hanged if I know—I'll be bothered if I do. It's of no use to me; and I suppose it's of no use to you, is it?"

"None whatever. I've all the money I'm ever likely to need and rather more; it's piling up at the bank as it is, so that I'm ashamed to look my bank-book in the face, there's such a lot of it. I wonder you can't find some better occupation for your time than making money when you've got more than you want already."

The old gentleman, bending towards her, took her hand in his. I could see how his face softened as he touched her, and how hers softened too.

"I tell you what I should like to do with