"Why, certainly I was expecting you," he answered. "I was just saying to myself that the only thing lacking in this fairy-tale was the beautiful Cinderella—and presto; there you were!"

She looked at him wildly, her eyes dark with fear. Suddenly she caught her lower lip between the thumb and little finger of her left hand, and stood a moment expectantly, holding it so and staring up at him. Then, as he stared back uncomprehendingly, she dropped into a chair and burst into a flood of tears.

Now a pretty woman in tears is, as everyone knows, a sight to melt a heart of stone, especially if that heart be masculine. This woman was extremely pretty, and Stewart's heart was very masculine, with nothing granitic about it.

"Oh, come," he protested, "it can't be so bad as that! Let us sit down and talk this thing out quietly. Evidently there is a mistake somewhere."

"Then you did not expect me?" she demanded, mopping her eyes.

"Expect you? No—except as the fulfillment of a fairy-tale."

"You do not know who I am?"

"I haven't the slightest idea."

"Nor why I am here?"

"No."

"Ah, ciel!" she breathed, "then I am lost!" and she turned so pale that Stewart thought she was going to faint.

"Lost!" he protested. "In what way lost? What do you mean?"

By a mighty effort she fought back the faintness and regained a little of her self-control.

"At this hotel," she explained, in a hoarse voice, "I was to have met a man who was to accompany me across the frontier. He had a passport for both of us—for himself and for his wife."

"You were to pass as his wife?"

"Yes."

"But you did not know the man?"

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