"Yes. After dinner I'll go on the terrace, Con, and I'll sit there alone, wondering what you're doing, and thinking of--just now. And--well, perhaps I'll say a little prayer for you. I _must_ go now. Say 'good-bye' to me." "I can't," he gasped, "I can't." "Con, I must." "Give me something," he stammered; "give me something you've got on." She broke off a handful of the flowers they had crushed, and, stooping, took his strained face between her palms, and kissed him twice--once on the lips, and, by impulse, on the brow. Then she opened the door cautiously. She smiled back at him, and stole away into the passage. And in the loneliness she left behind her, the boy lay kissing her lilies, and sobbing with his great despair. CHAPTER X Across twenty years a man made an obeisance to a woman for risking what she had risked that she might comfort a boy's pain. Conrad got up from the club chair and crossed over to the bookcase. He pulled out the Post Office Directory--and it sprawled open on the top shelf. Would he find the name under "A?" ... "Grice Ewart Adaile, M.P., 62 Norfolk Street, Park Lane." And she? Was she alive? could she be there, so close to him as that? He mourned to think how different she must be to-day. The woman had changed, and the boy had changed, and though he didn't know it, the town had changed the most. The ubiquitous rush and whir of electric trams, the ceaseless clangour of their bells beating through the brain, had turned peace into a pandemonium. Rouen had acquired all the noise of New York without any of its gaiety. Telegraph wires and telephone wires spanned the tops of the churches, and a mesh-work of iron ropes obscured the sky. He strolled to Norfolk Street the next afternoon. There was a half hope in his mind of finding a carriage at the door waiting to take the lady for her drive. If Mrs. Adaile came out--Oh, if Mrs. Adaile came out he would be well repaid; it would be exciting to recognise her, although she wouldn't recognise him! But she did not come out. The door was shut fast, and no familiar face happened to gaze pensively over the window boxes. He was disappointed. In the evening he went to another theatre. The hero of the comedy was supposed to be a man of his own age, and talked about himself as if he were a centenarian. He said he was thirty-seven and had "lived his life," and he called the heroine "Child." His hair was silvered at the temples, and he depressed Conrad exceedingly. The situation of Norfolk Street was so convenient, however, that Conrad took to passing through it rather often. And though he was old enough to know better, he certainly looked young enough to be the hero's son. One day he found the windows of No. 62 blank behind shutters. So the family had left town! He sauntered on, and hesitated, and went back. Here was an opportunity to ascertain what he wanted to know. He rang the bell, and asked a solemn functionary when Mrs. Adaile was expected home.