Red Széll

Indeed, I had already reached Montpellier in my pursuit of the maid Marie before his message came.

I had no difficulty in finding the ex-servant and in learning all that she could tell me.

She was a devoted creature who had only left her mistress because she was sure that she was in good hands and because her own approaching marriage made a separation inevitable in any case.

Her mistress had, as she confessed with distress, shown some irritability of temper towards her during their stay in Baden and had even questioned her once as if she had suspicions of her honesty.

and this had made the parting easier than it would otherwise have been.

Lady Frances had given her fifty pounds as a wedding present.

Like me, Marie viewed with deep distrust the stranger who had driven her mistress from Lausanne.

With her own eyes she had seen him seize the lady's wrist with great violence on the public promenade by the lake.

He was a fierce and terrible man.

She believed that it was out of dread of him that Lady Frances had accepted the escort of the Schlesingers to London.

She had never spoken to Marie about it, but many little signs had convinced the maid that her mistress lived in a state of continual nervous apprehension.

So far she had got in her narrative, when suddenly she sprang from her chair and her face was convulsed with surprise and fear.

See, she cried, the miscreant follows still.

There is the very man of whom I speak.

Through the open sitting room window I saw a huge swarthy man with a bristling black beard walking slowly down the centre of the street and staring eagerly at the numbers of the houses.

It was clear that, like myself, he was on the track of the maid.

Acting upon the impulse of the moment, I rushed out and accosted him.

You are an Englishman, I said.

What if I am?

he asked with a most villainous scowl.