Lafcadio was bringing Fleurissoire’s mortal remains back from Naples. The funeral van which contained them was coupled to the end of the train, but Lafcadio had not thought it indispensable to travel in it himself. At the same time a sense of propriety had made him take his seat--not actually in the next carriage to it, for this contained only second-class compartments--but at any rate as near the body as was compatible with travelling first. He had left Rome that morning and was due back in the evening of the same day. He was reluctant to admit to himself the new sensation which had taken possession of his soul, for there was nothing he held in greater disdain than ennui--that secret malady from which he had hitherto been preserved by the fine carelessness of his youthful appetites and by the pricks of hard necessity. He left his compartment with a heart empty of hope and joy and prowled up and down the whole length of the corridor, harassed by a kind of ill-defined curiosity and vaguely seeking he knew not what new and absurd enterprise in which to engage. He no longer thought of embarking for the East and acknowledged reluctantly that Borneo did not in the least attract him--nor the rest of Italy either; he could not feel any interest in the consequences of his adventure; it appeared to him, in his present mood, compromising and grotesque. He felt resentment against Fleurissoire for not having defended himself better; his soul protested against the pitiful creature; he would have liked to wipe him from his mind. On the other hand, he would gladly have met that strapping fellow who had carried off his portmanteau--a fine rascal that! And at Capua he leant out of the window and searched the deserted platform with his eyes, as though he hoped to discover him. But would he have recognised him? He had done no more than catch a distant glimpse of his back as he disappeared into the darkness. In his mind’s eye he followed him through the night, saw him reach the river’s bed, find the hideous corpse, rifle it and, almost as challenge, cut out of the hat--Lafcadio’s own hat--that little bit of leather which, as the newspapers had elegantly phrased it, was “of the size and shape of a laurel leaf.” With his hatter’s address inscribed on it, it was a piece of damning evidence, and after all Lafcadio was extremely grateful to his bag-snatcher for having prevented it from falling into the hands of the police. It was, no doubt, very much to this gentleman’s own interest not to attract attention to himself, and if, notwithstanding, he thought fit to make use of his bit of leather, upon my word! a trial of wits with him might not be unamusing.