Valognes, Carentan, Isigny, Bayeux, were passed, and the train drew up at Caen.  Ethelberta’s intention had been to stay here for one night, but having learnt from Lord Mountclere, as previously described, that this was his destination, she decided to go on.  On turning towards the carriage after a few minutes of promenading at the Caen station, she was surprised to perceive that Lord Mountclere, who had alighted as if to leave, was still there.

They spoke again to each other.  ‘I find I have to go further,’ he suddenly said, when she had chatted with him a little time.  And beckoning to the man who was attending to his baggage, he directed the things to be again placed in the train.

Time passed, and they changed at the next junction.  When Ethelberta entered a carriage on the branch line to take her seat for the remainder of the journey, there sat the viscount in the same division.  He explained that he was going to Rouen.

Ethelberta came to a quick resolution.  Her audacity, like that of a child getting nearer and nearer a parent’s side, became wonderfully vigorous as she approached her destination; and though there were three good hours of travel to Rouen as yet, the heavier part of the journey was past.  At her aunt’s would be a safe refuge, play what pranks she might, and there she would to-morrow meet those bravest of defenders Sol and Dan, to whom she had sent as much money as she could conveniently spare towards their expenses, with directions that they were to come by the most economical route, and meet her at the house of her aunt, Madame Moulin, previous to their educational trip to Paris, their own contribution being the value of the week’s work they would have to lose.  Thus backed up by Sol and Dan, her aunt, and Cornelia, Ethelberta felt quite the reverse of a lonely female persecuted by a wicked lord in a foreign country.  ‘He shall pay for his weaknesses, whatever they mean,’ she thought; ‘and what they mean I will find out at once.’

‘I am going to Paris,’ she said.

‘You cannot to-night, I think.’

‘To-morrow, I mean.’

’I should like to go on to-morrow.  Perhaps I may.  So that there is a chance of our meeting again.’

’Yes; but I do not leave Rouen till the afternoon.  I first shall go to the cathedral, and drive round the city.’

Lord Mountclere smiled pleasantly.  There seemed a sort of encouragement in her words.  Ethelberta’s thoughts, however, had flown at that moment to the approaching situation at her aunt’s hotel:  it would be extremely embarrassing if he should go there.

‘Where do you stay, Lord Mountclere?’ she said.

Thus directly asked, he could not but commit himself to the name of the hotel he had been accustomed to patronize, which was one in the upper part of the city.

‘Mine is not that one,’ said Ethelberta frigidly.