Perhaps never to see the Boy again! Why, I must be dreaming this. I should wake up soon, and everything would be as it had been. I had the sensation of having swallowed something very large and very cold, which would not melt. Reading the letter over for the second time made it no better, but rather worse. The Boy had become almost as important in my scheme of life as my lungs or my legs, and I did not quite see, at the moment, how it would be any more possible to get on without one than the other. Behold, I was stricken down by mine own familiar friend; yet no wrath against him burned within me; there was only that cold lump of disappointment, which seemed to be increasing to the size of a small iceberg. Even lacking explanations, or attempt at them, I knew that he had told the truth without flattery. He had wanted to stay, yet he had gone. And he said that perhaps I might never see him again! If I could have had my choice last night, whether to have the Boy lopped off my life, or to lose a hand, the probabilities are that I would have sacrificed the hand. But I had been offered no choice. I recalled our parting, and found new meaning in the words he had spoken at his door. There was no doubt about it; even then he had decided to break away from me. I realised this, and at the same instant rebelled against the decision. I determined not to accept it. He had vanished because of the two Americans; exactly why, I could not even guess, but I was certain that the reason was not to his discredit. To theirs, perhaps, but not to his. Nevertheless, they were somehow to blame for my loss, and if the young men had appeared at this moment, I should have been impelled to do them a mischief. The principal thing was, however, not to let them cheat me irrevocably of my comrade. I would not depend solely upon that hint about Monte Carlo. I would find out where he had gone, and I would follow. Let him be angry if he would. His anger, though a hot flame while it burned, never endured long. "Did Monsieur leave here by rail?" I enquired of Innocentina. She shrugged her shoulders. "That I cannot tell." "Do you mean you can't, or won't?" "I know nothing, Monsieur, except that I have been paid well, and told that I may go home as soon as I like, and by what route I like, having delivered the letter to Monsieur. My young master gave me enough to return with the donkeys to Mentone all the way from Chambéry by rail if I chose; but I prefer to walk down, and keep the extra money for my _dot_. It will make me a good one." I am not sure that, before disentangling a huge bottle-fly from Fanny's long lashes, she did not glance under her own at Joseph, when giving this information. "Look here, Innocentina," I said beguilingly, "tell me which way, and how, your young Monsieur has gone, and I will double that _dot_ of yours." "Not if you would quadruple it, Monsieur. I promised my master to say nothing." "Couldn't you get absolution for breaking a promise?"