Miss Pellissier's Suspicions

"Anna!"

Anna kissed her sister and nodded to her aunt. Then she sat
down--uninvited--and looked from one to the other curiously. There was
something about their greeting and the tone of Annabel's exclamation
which puzzled her.

"I wish," she said, "that you would leave off looking at me as though
I were something grisly. I am your very dutiful niece, aunt, and your
most devoted sister, Annabel. I haven't murdered any one, or broken
the law in any way that I know of. Perhaps you will explain the state
of panic into which I seem to have thrown you."

Annabel, who was looking very well, and who was most becomingly
dressed, moved to a seat from which she could command a view of the
road outside. She was the first to recover herself. Her aunt, a faded,
anaemic-looking lady of somewhat too obtrusive gentility, was still
sitting with her hand pressed to her heart.

Annabel looked up and down the empty street, and then turned to her
sister.

"For one thing, Anna," she remarked, "we had not the slightest idea
that you had left, or were leaving Paris. You did not say a word about
it last week, nor have you written. It is quite a descent from the
clouds, isn't it?"

"I will accept that," Anna said, "as accounting for the surprise.
Perhaps you will now explain the alarm."

Miss Pellissier was beginning to recover herself. She too at once
developed an anxious interest in the street outside.

"I am sure, Anna," she said, "I do not see why we should conceal the
truth from you. We are expecting a visit from Sir John Ferringhall at
any moment. He is coming here to tea."