"I?" she answered. "Impossible! I know no one in France."

"This is not a Frenchman. He is named Bailey, an American, I believe."

"Bailey?" Mrs. Costello repeated, terrified. "Surely he is not here?"

"There is a man of that name here--a miserable ruined gambler, who says that he knows Moose Island, and once travelled in Europe with a party of Indians."

"And what is he doing now?"

"Nothing. He is the most wretched, squalid object you can imagine. He came to me this morning to ask for the loan of a few francs. He had not even the honesty to beg without some pretence of an intention to pay."

"Is he so low then as to need to beg?"

"Madame, he is a gambler, I repeat it. If he had a hundred francs to-night, he would most likely be penniless to-morrow morning."

"And he claimed charity from you because of your connection with Canada?"

"Exactly. Having no other plea. I was right, madame: you know this man?"

"He was my bitterest enemy!" she answered, half rising in her vehemence.

"But for him I might have had a happy life."

Father Paul looked shocked.

"Forgive me," he said, in a troubled voice, "I am grieved to have spoken of him."

"On the contrary, I am thankful you did so. If I had met him by chance in the street, I believe he could not change so much that I should not know him, and he--"

She stopped, then asked abruptly,

"You did not mention me?"

"Most assuredly not."

"Yet he might recognise me. What shall I do?"

She was speaking to herself, and not to her companion now, and she looked impatiently towards the pier where Lucia was slowly coming back.

Presently she recovered herself a little, and asked a few more questions about Bailey. She gathered from the answers that he had been some time at Bourg-Cailloux, getting gradually more poverty-stricken and utterly disreputable. That he was now wandering about without a home, or money even for gambling. She knew enough of the man to be certain that under such circumstances he would snatch at any means of obtaining money, and what means easier, if he only knew it, than to threaten and persecute her. And at any moment he might discover her--her very acquaintance with Father Paul might betray her to him. She cast a terrified look over all the groups of people on the beach, half expecting to see the well-remembered features of Bailey among them; but he was not there. Close by her, however, stood Lucia, and at a little distance the carriage, which had been ordered to fetch them, was just drawing up.

CHAPTER XXII.

Mrs. Costello said nothing to Lucia on their way home about Bailey. She sat in her corner of the carriage, leaning back and thinking despairingly what to do. Her spirits had so far given way with her failing health that she no longer felt the courage necessary to face annoyance. And it was plainly to be feared that in case this man discovered her, he would have no scruples, being so needy and degraded, about using every means in his power to extort money from her.

Undoubtedly he had such means--he had but to tell her story, as he _could_ tell it, and not only her own life, but Lucia's, would be made wretched; the separation from Maurice, which she was beginning to hope might be only temporary, would become irrevocable--and, what seemed to her still more terrible, there would be perpetual demands from her enemy, and the misery of perpetual contact with him. To buy off such a man, at once and finally, was, she knew, utterly beyond her power--what then could she do?

When they were at home, and the door of their sitting-room safely closed, she turned anxiously to Lucia,

"Bailey is here," she said.

"Bailey?" Lucia repeated--she had forgotten the name.

"The man who was present at my marriage--the American."

"Mamma! How do you know?"

"Father Paul told me just now."

"How did he know?"

"The wretched man had gone to him begging, and he mentioned him to me by chance, thinking I might know something about him."

"But surely he would not remember you?"

"I think he would. If by any accident he met you and me together, I am certain he would."

"Ah! I am so like my father."

"Lucia, I _dare_ not meet him. I believe the very sight of him would kill me."

"Let us go away, mamma. He knows nothing about us yet. We might start to-morrow."

"Where should we go? Even at our own door we might meet him, at the railway station--anywhere. No, it is only inside these walls we are safe, and scarcely here."

Mrs. Costello was literally trembling, the panic which had seized her was so great; Lucia, not fully understanding yet, could not help being infected by her terror.

"But, mamma, we cannot shut ourselves up in these rooms. That, with the constant fear added to it, would soon make you ill again."

"What can we do?" Mrs. Costello repeated helplessly. "If, indeed, we could start to-night, and go south, or go out of France altogether. But I have not even money in the house for our journey."

"And if you had, you have not strength for it. Would not it be well to consult Mr. Wynter? If we had any friend here who would make the arrangement for us, I don't see why we should not be able to go away without any fear of meeting this man."

"No; that would not do. To consult George would just be opening up again all that was most painful--it would be almost as bad as meeting Bailey himself."

"And we could not be stopped even if we did meet Bailey. Let me go alone, mamma, and do what is to be done--it is not much. If I meet him I shall not know it, and seeing me alone, the likeness cannot be so strong as to make him recognize me all at once."

"But he might see us together when we start from here; and he might trace us. He would know at once that he could get money from me, and for money he would do anything."

She leaned back, and was silent a minute.

"We must keep closely shut up for a little while, till I can decide what to do. I wish Maurice would come."

Lucia looked up eagerly. It was her own thought, though she had not dared to say it. Maurice could always find the way out of a difficulty.

"Mamma," she said anxiously, but with some hesitation, "I think this is need--the kind of need Maurice meant."