Page:Bedford-Jones--The Mardi Gras Mystery.djvu/28

, she was both cloaked and masked. Encircling her hair was a magnificent scarf shot with metal designs of solid gold—a most unusual thing. Also, from her words it was evident that she had recognized them.

"Willingly, fair Columbine," responded Fell in his dry and unimpassioned tone of voice. "We shall be most happy, indeed, to protect and take you with us"

"So far as the door, at least," interrupted Ansley, with evident caution. But Fell drily laughed aside this wary limitation.

"Nay, good physician, farther!" went on Fell. "Our Columbine has an excellent passport, I assure you. This gauzy scarf about her raven tresses was woven for the good Queen Hortense, and I would venture a random guess that, clasped about her slender throat, lies the queen's collar of star sapphires"

"Oh!" From the Columbine broke a cry of warning and swift dismay. "Don't you dare speak my name, sir—don't you dare!"

Fell assented with a chuckle, and subsided.

Ansley regarded his two companions with sidelong curiosity. He could not recognize Columbine, and he could not tell whether