Beauchamp and the officers lost heart, and even the courier, whose trade being to run, could not be supposed to object to _battre la campagne_ in this manner, began to look rueful, under the apprehension that, if no farther clue could be gained, his occupation would soon be gone. After every inn had been inspected, every consul consulted, every shipping-office examined, Beauchamp determined once more to return to Paris, and thither he accordingly came by the way of Rouen, followed by the posse, who found it not at all disagreeable to eat, and drink, and sleep at his expense, and be paid for the trouble thereof over and above. New researches were immediately commenced; and never did fat-faced Gibbon bend his rotund cheeks over the pages of infidelity, ancient or modern, from Arius to Hobbes, with more eagerness to filch or find an objection or a fault in the blessed faith, whose beginning and end is glory to God in the highest, and peace and goodwill towards men, than did all parties pursue their object of discovering the guilty, in order, principally, it must be confessed, to exculpate the innocent. But the search seemed perfectly in vain; and the only conclusion to which any one could come was, that the murderers had really effected their escape to America. After nibbling at various surmises and reports for some time, the officer who had accompanied Beauchamp declared himself foiled, and took his leave. He who had been sent in quest of Captain Delaware had abandoned the pursuit for some time; and Beauchamp was thus left alone to proceed with such enquiries as he might still have sufficient perseverance to make. These enquiries, it must be confessed, related principally to Sir Sidney and Miss Delaware, but here as many difficulties awaited him as he had met with in the other search; and he was just on the point of giving up the matter in despair, and returning to London to surprise his mourning friends, when a circumstance occurred, which, without throwing the slightest ray of light upon the course which Blanche and her father had taken, served, at all events, to induce Beauchamp to remain in Paris for several days longer than he had intended. The hotel in which he lodged, at the corner of the Rue de la Paix, unlike most hotels in Paris, had but one staircase; and Beauchamp, who walked up and down this staircase as seldom as possible, had rarely the misfortune of meeting many people upon it. The last day but one, however, of his intended stay, he encountered a lady walking leisurely up; and, as each moved a little on one side, to suffer the other to pass, by a sort of semi-rotation of each upon the axis, their faces came opposite to one another, and Beauchamp recognised Mrs. Darlington while she paid him the same compliment.