He was wet from head to foot and trembling like a leaf by the time he got inside the gate-way of the house. Everything was quiet; as he glanced at the wife of the _concierge_, sewing behind the glass door of her little room, at the children playing in the yard, at the cat curled up on the stairs, he rebuked himself for his folly in taking a wild mob-rumour for a truth, and comforted by the homely, every-day aspect the house seemed to wear, he ran up the stairs and let himself into the top flat with a lightening heart. At any rate he was sure of one thing: if the worst came to the worst, they could not take him now without one more long look at his darling. In the terrible, searing excitement of the last hour, all George’s habitual self-control had given way, and the great passion of his life, which was always burning steadily in the depths of his heart, leapt up in towers of flame, showing luridly every weak spot in his nature. Like the sailor who bursts open the spirit-stores when the ship is past saving, George sprang across the sitting-room with a fierce yearning for his wife’s lips, with words more eloquent, caresses more tender, than any he had ever yet showered upon her, ready for one last interview which was to sum up all the happiness they had enjoyed together, to stamp upon her heart and mind, once and for ever, the memory of the man who had held her as the jewel of his soul, who set no value on his own life without her. He opened the bedroom door with clammy, trembling hands. Was he blinded by the rushing blood in his brain, or dazed by the sudden change from the lamp-light in the hall to the murky dimness of the fading daylight? Or was Nouna really not there? He crossed the floor to the bed, calling to her hoarsely by name, and hunting with his hands over every inch of the tumbled quilt where she had lain that afternoon. He went out on to the balcony, walking from end to end of it with his hand along the wet and slippery railing, feeling for her all the way, as if unable to trust to the senses of sight and sound. Then he returned to the sitting-room and still groping in the dusk, gave forth a loud cry that made the roof ring. “Nouna! Nouna!” The door opened slowly; but as he rushed towards it he met only Madame Barbier, the landlady, who, scared and shivering, tried to retreat. But George caught her by the wrists and forced her to answer him. “Where is my wife?” “Oh, monsieur, monsieur, don’t you know? Have you missed her? Don’t look like that, or I cannot, I will not answer you, monsieur; you frighten me; it is not my fault, I have done nothing, nothing at all.” George put his hand to his head with a muttered curse on the woman’s torturing idiotcy, and then forced himself to speak to her calmly. “My dear madame, surely you can see I don’t want to frighten you. But for God’s sake speak out.” Slowly, hesitatingly, paralysed by a sudden fear that the news she had would prove even more disquieting than suspense, she spoke.