I sent out for the morning papers. They were full of Harold. Rumours, rumours, rumours! Mr. Tillington had deliberately chosen to put himself in the wrong by disappearing mysteriously at the last moment. He had only himself to blame if the worst interpretation were put upon his action. But the police were on his track; Scotland Yard had "a clue": it was confidently expected an arrest would be made before evening at latest. As to details, authorities differed. The officials of the Great Western Railway at Paddington were convinced that Mr. Tillington had started, alone and undisguised, by the night express for Exeter. The South-Eastern inspectors at Charing Cross, on the other hand, were equally certain that he had slipped away with a false beard, in company with "his accomplice," Higginson, by the 8.15 p.m. to Paris. Everybody took it for granted, however, that he had left London. Conjecture played with various ultimate destinations--Spain, Morocco, Sicily, the Argentine. In Italy, said the _Chronicle_, he might lurk for a while--he spoke Italian fluently, and could manage to put up at tiny _osterie_ in out-of-the-way places seldom visited by Englishmen. He might try Albania, said the _Morning Post_, airing its exclusive "society" information: he had often hunted there, and might in turn be hunted. He would probably attempt to slink away to some remote spot in the Carpathians or the Balkans, said the _Daily News_, quite proud of its geography. Still, wherever he went, leaden-footed justice in this age, said the _Times_, must surely overtake him. The day of universal extradition had dawned; we had no more Alsatias: even the Argentine itself gives up its rogues--at last; not an asylum for crime remains in Europe, not a refuge in Asia, Africa, America, Australia, or the Pacific Islands. I noted with a shudder of horror that all the papers alike took his guilt as certain. In spite of a few decent pretences at not prejudging an untried cause, they treated him already as the detected criminal, the fugitive from justice. I sat in my little sitting-room at the hotel in Jermyn Street, a limp rag, looking idly out of the window with swimming eyes, and waiting for Lady Georgina. It was early, too early, but--oh, why didn't she come! Unless _somebody_ soon sympathized with me, my heart would break under this load of loneliness! Presently, as I looked out on the sloppy morning street, I was vaguely aware through the mist that floated before my dry eyes (for tears were denied me) of a very grand carriage driving up to the doorway--the porch with the four wooden Ionic pillars. I took no heed of it. I was too heart-sick for observation. My life was wrecked, and Harold's with it. Yet, dimly through the mist, I became conscious after a while that the carriage was that of an Indian prince; I could see the black faces, the white turbans, the gold brocades of the attendants in the dickey. Then it came home to me with a pang that this was the Maharajah.