A strong young man doing nothing, living on charity, so they say! And he despises all those who do what he himself is not ashamed to do." And Sylvia, looking across at her, said to herself with a heavy sigh that this was true.

Madame Wachner had summed up Count Paul very accurately.
At last there came the sound of a carriage in the quiet lane outside.
"Fritz! Go and see if that is the carriage I ordered to come here at nine o'clock," said his wife sharply; and then, as he got up silently to obey her, she followed him out into the passage, and Sylvia, who had very quick ears, heard her say, in low, vehement tones, "I work and work and work, but you do nothing! Do try and help me--it is for your sake I am taking all this trouble!" What could these odd words mean?
At what was Madame Wachner working?
A sudden feeling of discomfort came over Sylvia.

Then the stout, jolly-looking woman was not without private anxieties and cares?
There had been something so weary as well as so angry in the tone in which Madame Wachner spoke to her beloved "Ami Fritz." A moment later he was hurrying towards the gate.
"Sophie," he cried out from the garden, "the carriage is here! Come along--we have wasted too much time already--" Like Anna Wolsky, Monsieur Wachner grudged every moment spent away from the tables.
Madame Wachner hurried her two guests into her bed-room to put on their hats.
Anna Wolsky walked over to the window.
"What a strange, lonely place to live in!" she said, and drew the lace shawl she was wearing a little more closely about her thin shoulders.
"And that wood over there--I should be afraid to live so near a wood! I should think that there might be queer people concealed there." "Bah! Why should we be frightened, even if there were queer people there!" "Well, but sometimes you must have a good deal of money in this house." Madame Wachner laughed.
"When we have so much money that we cannot carry it about, and that, alas! is not very often--but still, when Fritz makes a big win, we go into Paris and bank the money." "I do not trouble to do that," said Anna, "for I always carry all my money about with me.

What do you do ?" she turned to Sylvia Bailey.
"I leave it in my trunk at the hotel," said Sylvia.

"The servants at the Villa du Lac seem to be perfectly honest--in fact they are mostly related to the proprietor, M.Polperro." "Oh, but that is quite wrong!" exclaimed Madame Wachner, eagerly.