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176 foul play in the matter of the French girl's death. The evidence against the young man was of far too slight and vague a character to endanger his life or liberty. It was only just enough to cast a cloud upon his reputation; and that his cousin's husband should put himself out of the way on this account seemed to the last degree unlikely. Julian Wyllard's life, judged as Heathcote judged it, was that of a man who had lived exclusively for himself and his own happiness. An excellent husband to a wife whom he adored, a good master, a liberal landlord; yet a man with whom self had ever been paramount.

passed. Julian Wyllard attended the sale at the Hôtel Drouot, bought three of the smaller gems of the Rochejaquelin gallery, and allowed the Raffaelle to pass into a national collection. His wife and he had gone about Paris and its environs in the mean while; Dora very happy in revisiting the spots she had admired in her youth.

The week had gone, and there had been no reply to Heathcote's advertisement. But there had been a letter from Joseph Distin.

"The last few days have not been entirely barren in results," he wrote. "Léonie Lemarque's handbag has been found at the Charing Cross Station; it was left in the waiting-room on the morning of the 5th July, immediately after the arrival of the mail train from Dover. The bag is now in my office. It contains some linen, marked L. L., slippers, brush, and comb; but not a document of any kind. Nothing to afford the slightest clue to the girl's business in London. The police have found a hansom-cabman who drove a tall, gentlemanlike man and a French girl from Charing Cross to Paddington Station on the morning of the 5th of July, in time for the Penzance train. They had no luggage. The cabman believes that he should recognise the man if he saw him again, but can give no clear description of his appearance, except that he was a fine-looking man in the prime of life. He talked French to the girl, and the cabman supposes him to have been a Frenchman. He and the girl appeared to be on very good terms. The cabman saw them go into the Paddington Station together, about five minutes before the starting of the train. The photograph of the dead girl has been shown to this cabman, and he has