I sat down, and related to him the events of the past night. Turner's face was grave enough when I had finished, and I saw him note with some surprise that he had allowed his coffee to get cold. "I don't like the sound of it," he said. "One never knows with a Frenchman--he is never too old to talk of his mother, or make an ass of himself." The English banker was of the greatest assistance to me during that most anxious day. But we found no clew, nor discovered any reason for the Vicomte's disappearance. I went back in the evening to the Hotel Clericy, and there found Madame de Clericy and Lucille awaiting me, with that calmness which is admirable when there is nothing else but waiting to be done. It was at eight o'clock in the evening that the explanation came, from a source as natural as it was unexpected. A letter was delivered by the postman for Madame de Clericy, who at once recognized her husband's unsteady handwriting. She crossed the room, and stood beside me while she opened the envelope. Lucille, seeing the action, frowned, as I thought. I was still under displeasure--still learning that the better sort of woman will not forgive deception so long as she herself is its motive, as cheap cynics would have us believe. Madame read the letter with that self-repression which was habitual to her, and made me ever wonder what her youth had been. Lucille and I watched her in silence. "There," she said, and gave me the letter to pass to Lucille, who received it from my hand without taking her eyes from her mother's face. Then I quitted the room, leaving the two women alone. Madame followed me presently to the study, and there gave me the Vicomte's last letter to read. It was short and breathed of affection. "Do not seek for me," it ran. "I cannot bear my great misfortunes, and the world will, perhaps, be less cruel to two women who have no protector." Madame handed me the envelope, which bore the Passy postmark, and I read her thoughts easily enough. I saw John Turner again that evening, also Alphonse Giraud, who had called at the Hotel Clericy during the day. With these gentlemen I set off the next morning for Passy, taking passage in one of those little river steamers which we had all seen a thousand times, without thinking of a nearer acquaintance. "This is gay," cried Alphonse, on whom the sunshine had always an enlivening effect, as we sped along. "This is what you call sport--_n'est ce pas_? For you are a maritime race, is it not so, Howard?" "Yes," answered I, "we are a maritime race." "And figure to yourself this is the first time that I am afloat on anything larger than a ferry-boat." During our short trip Alphonse fully decided that if his fortune should be recovered he would buy a yacht. "Do you think you can recover it?" he asked quite wistfully, his mind full of this new scheme, and oblivious to the mournful object of our journey. At Passy we were received with shrugging shoulders and outspread hands.