News reached me early this morning which necessitated my immediate departure. I know, alas, that you will feel sad at not seeing me again. Believe me, so am I, but it is unavoidable. I asked for you before I left, but they told me at the hotel that you had not yet left your room. I scribble this line at the station. Forgive me, my dear friend, for all the trouble I have given you, and believe that I am very grateful. We shall meet again some day, and meanwhile keep a kindly remembrance of your friend FRANCINE DE CORANTIN. She gave no address. Bobby read the letter again and again; he could hardly believe his eyes. The worst thing that could possibly happen had befallen him. Where could she have gone, and why couldn’t she tell him, and oh, how could he have been such a fool as to have gone on sleeping like a stupid log at the moment that she was going away? He would never be able to forgive himself for that. Was there any connection between her departure and her meeting with Alistair Ramsey? Bobby tried to concentrate his mind on the problem, but it baffled him. Completely bewildered, he cross-questioned the hall porter, but he could add nothing to what he had already said. Madame de Corantin had gone and she had left no address and he had not the slightest idea where, nor did he know to what station she had gone. A car had come for her, apparently a private one, she had not ordered it at the hotel. What trains were there leaving? Oh, there were numbers; there was one to Rouen and Havre and also to Dieppe about that time, to Bordeaux and San Sebastian, to all kinds of places. Bobby realized the utter hopelessness of attempting to trace her. Wretchedly the hours passed; in the middle of the afternoon he decided that whatever happened he would not stay another night in Paris. The thought of it sickened him. Paris, the hotel, and everything else had become hateful. No, he would spend that night at Dieppe, and go to London the next day, that was all he could think of. Back in London, Bobby’s condition of misery, so far from improving, became worse. His life, aimless enough ever since the War, seemed now more aimless than ever. Every man he knew had something to do; he alone was objectless and workless. More profoundly than ever he realized all that Madame de Corantin had meant to him. Her disappearance had made his life a blank. Had there been some glimmer of hope, however slight, of penetrating the mystery, had there been the faintest clue to her present whereabouts, he would have thrown himself heart and soul into the endeavour to trace her, but he had absolutely nothing to go upon. Weary and desolate, he haunted restaurants and hotels, in the vague hope that chance might some day yield him a glimpse of her, as a gambler clings to a faint prospect of redeeming his fortunes through some wonderful and unexpected revulsion of luck. But the days passed without the slightest encouragement, and his misery turned almost to despair.