I passed a quiet day or two in my hotel garden, among the sweet-peas, and the roses, and the geraniums. There were little shady summer-houses where one could sit and dream, and watch the blue sky and the palms and the feathery pepper trees drooping with their coral berries, and the golden orange-trees and the wisteria and the great gorgeous splash of purple bougainvillea above the Moorish arches of the hotel. There were mild little walks in the eucalyptus woods behind, where one went through acanthus and wild absinthe, and here and there as the path wound, the great blue bay came into view, and far away the snow-capped peaks of the Atlas. There were warmth and sunshine, and the unexciting prattle of the retired Colonels and maiden ladies. There was a hotel library filled with archaic fiction. I took out Ainsworth's “Tower of London,” and passed a happy morning in the sun renewing the thrills of my childhood. I began to forget the outer world in my enchanted garden, like a knight in the Forest of Broceliande. Then came the letter from Tlemcen. The Lieutenant-Colonel commanding the 3rd Regiment of Chasseurs d'Afrique had received my honoured communication but regretted to say that he, together with all the officers of the regiment, had severed their connection with Captain Vauvenarde, and that they were ignorant of his present address. This was absurd. A man does not resign from his regiment and within a year or two disappear like a ghost from the ken of every one of his brother officers. I read the letter again. Did the severance of connection mean the casting out of a black sheep from their midst? I came to the conclusion that it did. They had washed their hands of Captain Vauvenarde, and desired to hear nothing of him in the future. So I awoke from my lethargy, and springing up sent not for my shield and spear, but for an “Indicateur des Chemins de Fer.” I would go to Tlemcen and get to the bottom of it. I searched the time-table and found two trains, one starting from Algiers at nine-forty at night and getting into Tlemcen at noon next day, and one leaving at six-fifty in the morning and arriving at half-past ten at night. I groaned aloud. The dealing unto oneself a happy life and portion did not include abominable train journeys like these. I was trying to decide whether I should travel all night or all day when the Arab chasseur of the hotel brought me a telegram. I opened it. It ran: “Starting for Algiers. Meet me.--LOLA.”