He was curiously reluctant to leave the hotel. Therefore Jim dined with him in the grill room whose chef has been preserved for posterity by Orpen’s brush. Of Marguerite Devina they saw nothing. At the end of dinner: “If I don’t stop thinking about this muddle,” Jim declared, “I shall become completely cuckoo. It’s the Folies Bergères or a lunatic asylum for mine. Make your selection.” The selection was made. And it was at a late hour (Paris time) that Barry returned to the Chatham. The night porter handed him a letter. In his room he tore open the envelope. He began to read. Then, rushing to the telephone, he banged the lever up and down in a frenzy of impatience. At last: “Hullo! Hullo!” he called, in a high, unnatural voice. “Ring Miss Marguerite Devina!” “Miss Devina left this evening, m’sieur.” And when dawn came it found Barry haggard, wild-eyed, pacing the room, ever and anon taking up a crumpled letter and reading and rereading it. CHAPTER XXXII. THE GREAT AHMES “Barry Dear: “I don’t ask you to forgive me. I never meant to see you again. But when Jim spoke to me to-day I realized, somehow, that _you_ were here. And I knew you would come. And I knew I would have to see you. I didn’t know how hard it would be--because I never believed you cared, like that. “I don’t know how to tell you what I see now, I _must_ tell. It all began, really many years ago, when I was a baby, and when Paul Ahmes was giving up everything to make my mother’s last days bearable. She had never loved him, but they had one thing in common. It was their passion for Egypt. She made her great success in an Egyptian opera and he as an Egyptian performer. He used to buy Egyptian antiques with all he could save. He knew more about these things than any dealer in Europe. Most of his stage properties were real. They inspired him. “One day my mother read that a ring which had been the property of the real Thaïs was being auctioned at Sotheby’s in London. This ring had once belonged to her. She never sang Thaïs without wearing it. But poverty had forced her to sell it. Paul Ahmes, knowing what happiness the recovery of this ring would give her, went to London to buy it. This was like him. He did not bid, himself, as all the auctioneers knew him. He sent someone. “Barry--your father was at that auction--and he has the ring to-day! When Ahmes heard that John Cumberland had secured it, he wrote to him, and without mentioning my mother’s name told him all the circumstances. Your father did not believe him. “My mother died the night after Ahmes returned.