Chapter XXXVII

[In which we hear of Henry Gastonard at the Pavilion Henry Quatre in the town of St. Germain by Paris.]

Pavilion Henry Quatre, St Germain, By Paris,
November 5th, 1905.

Dear Paddy,--I have very great news for you, and I hardly know how to tell it. This must be the excuse for my silence these many days. Oh, my dear old chap, if you knew what it all meant to me! But I will try to tell you soberly, though God knows how much my impatience tempts me to heroics.

You have been to St. Germain in my motor, and will not have forgotten it. Don’t you remember that great forest plateau above the river; how the old car groaned to climb the height, and what a lovely view we had from the very terrace before the windows?

That was in the “witching month of summer.” I remember that we set out after a dinner at Bernotti’s, which you thought execrable, and a supper, _chez Maxim_, which won upon your fancy. We were a _partie carrée_ in the car, and you were not a little alarmed lest news of the escapade, and of two young and amiable ladies from the Chatelet should ever reach the secluded shades of Glendalough.

Those, my dear Paddy, were the roses of yesteryear. We gathered them upon the velvet sward of youth, the vine leaves in our hair, and the garlands of eternal hope about our brows. You, I remember, were all for a fortune your uncle was about to leave you, and a chateau at Bougival--I for a gold medal at the salon and a niche in the eternal temple. Let us draw the veil upon such a treacherous jade. Did not old John O’Connell leave every shilling to the priests--bad cess to him, and is not the very bust I then worked upon become a corner-stone in the house of my abasement?

I am once again at St. Germain, Paddy, and the changed season of the year speaks eloquently for me. What a rare day of autumn, what a chill, bleak night, with a voice to whisper of winter! Here is the very same terrace, magnificent as of yore--that terrace upon a glorious height wherefrom you look down to the valley of the shining river, away across the desolate plain of poplars, whereupon humanity plays its Lilliputian _rôle_ upon a mighty field, and beyond which Paris herself is but a blur upon a far horizon. But it is a silent terrace, Paddy, and the “monde” has deserted it. No gay music of fiddles now; no majesty of womanhood; no rustling silks and floating chiffon, and “Monsieur” to glance to the right of him and to the left of him ere sitting at the table of his guilt. Even the “teuf teuf” is silent, and the very stables cry desolation to you. The sun gave and the sun has taken away; and for want of that little sunbeam the chiffoned elves are hidden, and the world of laughter has fled the woods.

But I hear you resenting this philosophy and asking for the news. Let an excuse of prolixity be that of the day and of the hour. It is Sunday, and but two parties at this famous house. I linger here because the events of these latter days forbid me to tear myself away. Would you have it otherwise as the circumstances go? Was it not on Friday that Jules Farman came to me, whispered a word in my ear that quickened my pulse as wine, and even hinted that the end was near? A more reticent man does not exist--there is no greater pessimist in all the service. And _he_ came to me and told me--_he_ permitted me to hope--_he_ encouraged me to believe the best. Do you wonder that I behaved like a fool for three good hours, and did not cease so to behave until he threatened to leave me behind and to do the work--if work were to be done--himself?

There are some private affairs, Paddy, which are better for the wisdom of an old friend’s tongue--and this is one of them. I was in a poor way when Farman came to me and had begun to say that the Marquis de Saint Faur would never reveal what he knew of the Count d’Antoine’s visit to London. More than that, I imagined that the purpose of the visit could throw no light upon its dreadful sequel. Here was a French gentleman, of the older fashion, who told me plainly that he kept a secret from me, but begged me to believe that his reticence was both wise and honourable. And I must believe him; I must carry the assurance that he knew, and that his knowledge must be hidden from me.

A torture truly--for what burden is so heavy to a man in doubt as the silence of another who could speak? I perceived that the Marquis would never speak; and, driven to the belief that my little wife had not left England at all, was upon the point of keeping my promise to you when Farman came with his amazing story, and all the castles of despair were demolished in an instant.

This was at five o’clock of the afternoon of Friday. There had been a day of wonderful sunshine for the month of November, and many people in the streets. I lunched with that pleasant fellow, the Chevalier Honoré de Villefort, at the Madrid, and went with him afterwards to the house of the famous painter, Delmormet, who has a studio for portraits in the Avenue de Malakoff. A promise to Villefort that we would go up to the Butte together to dine, and then make a tour of the old cafés, was not fulfilled, for I had no sooner come in sight of the Hôtel St. Paul than I remarked a large motor-car standing at the door, and leaped to the conclusion that it had come for me. In this I was not mistaken. Jules Farman himself waited in my room, and instantly informed me of the truth.

“Madame Gastonard is at Bougival--in an old house near the river,” he said.

I looked at him, but did not answer. The room and all things in it were spinning before me as a gyroscope. The temptation to laugh was almost uncontrollable.

“What do you say, Farman?”

“That Madame Gastonard is at Bougival, and that we must go there immediately.”

I walked across to the buffet and filled a wineglass with brandy. It was odd to hear my own heart beating, odd to be lifted in an instant, as it were, upon the wings of light to a very heaven of gratitude and thanksgiving--and yet my prudence saved me. Doubt whispered loudly in my ear. I could laugh for excitement and yet curse the fate which made me doubt. Even Jules Farman was powerless against that native caution which has saved me so many days.

“Why do you believe this, Farman?”

“Monsieur,” he said very simply, “the man Jean-le-Mont has told us something.”

“He has told you something--yes--but what? Speak, man, for God’s sake! Is your heart of marble that you play with me like this?”

He seemed astonished. He is officialdom personified. What are men and women to him but names to be docketed, identities to be established, the persons of the drama which can move him to no excitements.

“It is a long story,” he said next, “and we have little time. If you are ready, we will go to Bougival.”

I did not answer him immediately. The voice of prudence cried to me to make haste. Good God, that I should delay, I who would have gone through fire and water for Mimi’s sake! And he reproached me, this smooth-faced servant of bureaucracy who had done his work so well.

“I am ready, Farman--let us go,” I said--for he delayed now.

He pointed to my thin overcoat.

“Not without our furs, monsieur; the night will be cold.”

The rebuke was just, and I perceived that he was heavily clad, though in other respects the same reticent, unobtrusive creature we have always known. When all was ready, he gave a direction to the driver to go to Asnières--a suburb to the northwest of Paris--and taking his seat beside me in the tonneau, we made the journey without a single word spoken between us.

And what could I say to him? What treasure of my inmost thoughts should I lay bare at such an hour? My love? Impossible to speak of that. My gratitude? He was well aware of it. The doubts lingering, the spectres of incredulity? They sat by his side too, for his very reservations betrayed him. Enough for me to say, Mimi is at Bougival; I am going to her; I shall find her to-night; to-morrow she will awake upon my heart. Were we not flying towards her?--streets and boulevards devoured us with an appetite of distance insatiable; houses and shops, cafés and restaurants--so many stars of light to guide us; intervals of blackness; bridges above and rivers below; trains crashing upon iron girders; trams humming toward the city--all the panorama of the flight as though shown upon a cloth. And afterwards the open country. Streets emaciated; factories at intervals; red blasts of light against a black sky; the fresher air of fields and parks; and beyond all, one clear star upon an imagined horizon--the star of our faith and purpose.

I have never been more grateful to a motor-car in my life, and may never be as grateful again. Here was a machine of steel whose soul sent out a sympathetic message to my own. “I know, know, know,” the voice of it seemed to say. A horse bending to the whip could not have answered more readily to the fevered cries of a despairing master. We covered the ground as upon some magic carpet stretched out at my desire. When the flight ended, when the voice from the heart of steel was no longer heard, I noticed that we stood before a little café in the narrow street of an inconsiderable town. And I was as one awakened from a nightmare of sleep. Was she here; was this the house? The omens said, no. I glanced at the café and perceived two old friends standing at its doorway. They were the mendicant Georges Oleander and the merry Chevalier Honoré de Villefort--whom I had but just left in Paris.

“We are here to dine with the Chevalier,” Farman whispered to me as we descended; “please to remember that. We are returning at eleven o’clock. I wish no other suggestion to be made. It is very important.”

I nodded my head to him, and we entered the house together. A zeal, burning to a point almost beyond endurance, bade me welcome this respite, as a man may welcome an inn upon a journey to the house of his pleasures. The café, I observed, was one frequented by the students; a shabby little place, with a damp, stained frieze of faded gilt to speak of ancient glories. The occupants of it were a dozen students, poets, painters, and the riff-raff of the schools. Dinner had been set for us in a mock _cabinet particulier_--but a sorry imitation of the genuine article. Here, anon, we were joined by Desmond Barrymore, and immediately he had entered, the _patron_ himself served up the first course of a dinner whose menu might have been in Chinese, for all I remember of it.

Imagine my feelings, Paddy, as I sat at this rude table with the old friends who have fought so many battles--and cracked so many bottles--of Bohemia in my company. Not many months ago, Barrymore and I were fighting for little Mimi’s very life in the Lapin Agil on the Butte. I left Paris, and he came across the sea to witness my marriage. Again a few weeks roll on, and he is here as a silent witness of my despair. The others, good fellows that they were, could but act a mean part on such a night. Ah, for the old times when no man cared a sou for the morrow, and sufficient for the day was the evening thereof. This thought tempted me sometimes. We may well dread a gift of happiness, for shall there not be an aftermath of sorrow, whatever our fortune?

It was not hidden from me that Jules Farman had called upon these good comrades of mine to share his confidence. They were excited, but not eloquent. Recalling old days of the games, I found them in that mood which overtakes a man when he is about to run or row a race, and believes that he will win it. They talked at rare intervals, drank much wine, evaded my questions, and rarely looked me in the face.

When dinner was over, we went into the outer room and joined the Bohemians there. This I understood to be part of the stratagem, and I made no comment upon it; and, for that matter, the scene was droll enough. The artist--especially the French artist--in Suburbia is a wild creature, as you know well; nor were these men exceptions. We discovered them in all attitudes, some sprawling at the tables, some billing and cooing in far secluded corners. The man at the piano had a girl upon his knees, and cuddled her while he played. The shadowgraph which they acted presently would have brought the police into any establishment in London. But here it seemed innocent enough. After all, the spirit of the play goes for much.

Depict a far from clean sheet drawn across one end of this mean room, and a shadow-play cast upon it. There is a sick man shown, and he is _in extremis_. Appear a doctor, who pulls out the fellow’s tongue with a pair of pliers, and rams it in again with a motor tyre lever. Medicine is administered to the moribund creature as a horse is drenched with drugs. The relatives gather round the bed, and begin to divide up the man’s property between them. But they are reckoning without their host. The wonderful drug acts upon the sick man with amazing and miraculous results. He sits up in bed, waves the throng off, spurns his wife aside, leaps from his couch, and embraces the pretty nurse ecstatically. This is the whole cure; and those who were the spectators have now become the imitators, inspired by the _mens sana_. The artists embrace all the pretty girls near them. Somebody puts out the electric light, and in the darkness we hear squeals and giggles. Thus genius amuses itself--thus, the story of the youth of to-day, whom Fame will acclaim at maturity to-morrow.

Just as a man upon his way to a _rendezvous_, where the opportunity of a lifetime awaits him, may be amused by the _gamins_ of the pavement, so did this absurdity of the café engross me. It was something to lean back in my chair and to tell myself that I was a prisoner there for Mimi’s sake. Later on, when the appointed hour came, I would go to her and tell her how I had waited. And prudence said that Jules Farman delayed because our very success depended on his cleverness.

Strangers at the café--would not that rumour be bruited abroad quickly enough. I imagined also that he waited for some man to come or go, was watching patiently as we sat, and numbering the very minutes as the old wooden clock above the doorway numbered them. Nor in this was I mistaken. At eleven o’clock precisely he rose, and we followed him from the place without a word. The great car stood already at the door; we entered it, and were whirled away as it might seem toward Paris, but in reality toward St. Germain and the chateau of Bougival below the heights.

Now, this was not a long journey, but to my impatience nigh intolerable. I knew nothing of the road we followed; the night was so black that the sharpest eyes could make little either of the route or its environment. I can only tell you that we perceived the lights of St. Germain at last, and had no sooner set our course toward them than we turned from the high road and entered upon a narrow track which was little better than a waggon-way. This we followed, perhaps for the half of a mile, then the River Seine came to our view, and at the same moment the car stopped, and I knew that this was our destination.

There is no moon before midnight this month, and we had fallen upon a black, dark night. My busy eyes could follow the silver shimmer upon the still water of the river, but little else of the scene about. It is true that a glint of light at the far side of a meadow seemed to tell of a house there, though of what nature I could not hazard. Farman himself carried many anxieties, and he entered the wood at the roadside, and remained there some minutes alone before we had his confidence. When he returned, he gathered us about him, and began to speak in a low voice.

“Madame Gastonard,” he said, “has been in that house for three days. She was taken there by a man named Bedotte and the old woman Marie from Orleans. I have reason to believe that both of them are in the house to-night. The others were the man Jean-le-Mont and the showman Gondré. The former is now in our pay, and the latter has been arrested at Asnières to-night. We shall find the man Bedotte dangerous, but I do not think he will trouble us very much. If there should be others with him, whose names I do not know, I may have to ask you gentlemen to give me some help. Be pleased to take these--and to use them if I bid you.”

He went to the car, and produced three revolvers from it. Old Georges Oleander’s protest that he was more likely to shoot one of us than any other caused a smile even at such a time. But we gave him a heavy knobbed stick in place of the pistol, and so set out in single file across a marshy meadow toward the house. My own place was upon Farman’s heels, and I would have given much for another word with him. But he walked fast and resolutely, and did not stop until a hound began to bay and another to answer from a house upon the further side of the river. Then he stopped and listened.

“I had not thought of a dog,” he said quietly; “we must remember him, gentlemen.”

The Chevalier assented with a jest, Georges Oleander, I thought, a little dolefully. As for me, I did not lift my eyes from the lamp which shone across the fields as an omen of salvation. Mimi was there, harboured in that mean house. Men so vile that no man could name them truly were her jailors, and she stood alone among them. Incredible! and this was Farman’s story--the word of a man who had never lied to me. Oh, think of it all, Paddy, and try to follow my footsteps toward the house. Be patient if the record is not to be set down without emotion.

I had supposed that we should approach the place covertly and a tip-toe. Such, however, was not to the mind of this amazing Jules Farman. He crossed the meadow as bold as any pedestrian out for the air on the Champs Elysées, and with less concern. As the villa took shape against the curtain of the sky, I made it out to be little more than a modern cottage set in a narrow garden which sloped toward the river. There was no other house in sight, nor any outstanding object to relieve the sense of isolation and security. But the river at the back was plainly in our favour, and I judged that the common at the front could conceal no sentinel. So perhaps I began to understand why Farman went so resolutely, and did not halt until we were but fifty paces from the door.

“Monsieur Gastonard,” he said quietly, “you will please to use force should the occasion arise. I am hoping that it will not arise, and that our visit to the café will have been useful to us. If you please, gentlemen.”

He waited for them to go on, smiling, I thought, for a brief instant at old Oleander’s hesitation. When they had opened the garden gate--whereby they paused a little while--the hound ceased to bay, and as hounds will, at a resolute approach, began to fawn upon them. They were lost to our view, and with no further delay, Farman walked toward the villa and knocked three times upon its door.

It would be impossible, Paddy, to tell you of my own sensations during these instants of waiting. Depict me standing in the miserable patch of formal garden, at the door of a paltry red brick villa, listening, as I have never listened in all my life, trembling, I do believe, in the very excitement of my hope. More than once the temptation to cry out almost overpowered me. I must tell her that I had come--must let Mimi know that I waited for her. I could have beaten down twenty doors in my rage against delay, smashed the glass of the window to atoms, and razed the very building to the ground. Upon the other side was this imperturbable Farman, as quiet, as cat-like as ever, listening with bent ear, betraying no emotion; seemingly convinced already of his success. And I must obey him faithfully, wait as he waited, crush my impatience in hands of iron. Oh, I say, it was intolerable, and yet it was the truth!

No one answered to our bold knock; the silence became almost insupportable. A minute we waited, two minutes, and still there was no sound but that of our own quick breathing. As for the lamp which burned so brightly, we could see it plainly, standing upon the table of the front room and the single ornament of that bare apartment. For the rest, there was no carpet on the floor, no ornament, no picture--but just the room itself and the bare wooden table and the lamp standing upon it. This we might have looked for, but not for the mystery of the silence, the absolute stillness which met us--so that one could have heard a watch ticking in the hand. Were the men warned, then? Had they fled the place? My heart sank low at the thought--and yet it was a thought that crept upon me.

I had spoken no word to Farman since we entered the garden of the house, but this new turn was not to be borne, and I could suffer it no longer. A hurried whisper asked him what he made of it--and, a little to my surprise, he answered me aloud.

“They are asleep,” he said quietly; “we must wake them”--and he knocked so loudly that the hound began to bay again, and I could hear the voice of Oleander cursing him. Plainly, we had no further need of concealment.

“Who is asleep?” I asked a little brutally. “Did you not tell me that Madame Gastonard was here?”

“I believed so,” he answered as quietly.

“You believed so--well?”

“I shall tell you presently.”

His answer told me that he, with all his discernment, could make little of the situation. My own advice had been to force the window of the room, and this he now proceeded to do--but first he lighted a little lantern and laid his pistol on the sill. A disingenuous catch gave way at the first attempt, and we climbed through immediately, and went straight toward the inner door. Here for an instant Farman stood irresolute.

“There may be some danger,” he said--and then he asked me--“are you quite prepared?”

I whispered that I was, and he flung the door wide open, searching the hall beyond with the faint rays from a policeman’s lantern. There were signs of habitation here such as we might have expected--a felt hat upon a cane-seated chair, a basket such as women take to market, a stick so heavy that it was almost a bludgeon, an old mackintosh hanging upon a nail driven into the wall. The floor was uncarpeted and showed mud from clumsy boots--at the far end the door of the kitchen stood open, and a flicker of firelight from the grate still flashed upon its plastered walls. Thither now we went cautiously. But the place was tenantless--though a kettle still sang upon the hob and some dishes stood unwashed upon the table.

I often think, Paddy, that nothing is so sure a test of a man’s nerves as a house of unknown perils, which we must search room by room. I am afraid of little in this world. It is no mere boast--for these things are purely physical--but I possess some presence of mind beyond ordinary, and a contempt for many of the situations of danger which tradition has glorified. And yet I swear to you, the sweat ran down my face like rain while I stood by Farman’s side in that shabby kitchen and asked him, what next?

No longer did I believe that Mimi was here--and yet I was forbidden to say that she was not here. The evidence of recent occupation, the shreds of coarse food, the empty bottles lying pell-mell in the scullery, a woman’s tattered bonnet flung to a corner, a little jug of milk set apart with a few dry biscuits--these were the witnesses to Farman’s good faith and witnesses no logic could shake.

As he had spoken, so the truth--that my dear wife had been the captive of these ruffians in this very house, that she might even be a captive still or worse than a captive. For now I shall tell you that an overmastering fear of the worst took possession of me and would not be quieted. I cared nothing for the men or the danger of their presence. Every step, long dragged out and heavy, was as a step toward a dreadful secret. The upper stories of the house became in an instant the chambers of the terrible truth. And above all was the torture of the thought that we had come too late, and but for those useless hours at St. Germain might have saved her. This latter brought me to the nadir of despair. Even Farman took pity upon me.

“I begin to think that Madame is not here,” he said quietly. “Let us go upstairs--we shall not be long in doubt.”

I looked him full in the face, and did not spare him the question.

“Is she alive, Farman?”

“Why should they kill her? The blackmailer never kills--he has not the courage.”

I could but shrug my shoulders.

“Then their object has been blackmail?”

“It could be nothing else, Monsieur.”

I admitted his reasoning, but it did little to console me. If there were peril of our proceeding this must be the moment of it. For we had to climb the narrow stairway, ignorant of those who were above, and powerless to shield ourselves from their attack.

How it came that I was up on the first floor before Jules Farman I am not able to tell you. I remember only that I stood on a dark landing listening to my own heavy breathing, and unable to distinguish other sounds. What light there was came astreak through a narrow window high above us. I could make out the shapes of doors, but they were shut and meaningless. The floor was but a black patch until a warm ray of light shone down upon it from my companion’s lantern and instantly declared its secret.

An old woman lay there--a shrivelled, white-faced hag of a woman, whose clothes were little more than a bundle of rags, whose hand still clutched the heavy stick with which, perchance, she had been struck down. And this Jezebel had gone to her account. The mask of death is sometimes unmistakable. It was unmistakable on Friday night when I came face to face with the old woman, Marie of Orleans, upon the landing of the house at Bougival.

I say that it was a dreadful discovery, and yet, God knows, my thoughts in the instant of it were less of this stricken huddled body upon the floor than of the events which had preceded the murder. There is always awe of death, Paddy, however humble the subject, however callous the discoverer. And at the dark of the night in a lonely house with mystery whispering all about, the awe is manifold. Here we were, stooping to put our hands upon the dead woman’s heart, listening as we did so for any sounds from the secret rooms, and yet, perchance thinking of our own safety all the while. Who had been the instruments of our vengeance upon this mumbling hag? Must we unearth them presently, strike them down as they had struck her, spend the precious hours in such a butcher’s task?

For my part, I thought that any instant might bring the ruffians upon us. It was a trial intolerable to watch the closed doors and wait for them to open. Why did the men delay? And Mimi--my God, why was she silent? Then a better instinct began to say that she was not here, and this gave me courage. Let me know the fact for a truth, and I cared not how many villains were harboured here.

We opened the doors one by one, Farman carrying his lantern. I had a revolver at the cock. But I shall tell you at once that we discovered nothing. There were beds in two of the rooms, and a third had a paltry _ameublement_ which spoke of a gentler occupation. But in the main the house remained the same hard and chilling villa that we had imagined it to be--and I vow that there was something beyond all words melancholy in that secret which lay at the heart of it. An empty, barren house and a dead woman’s body upon the stairs. So much for Bougival--so much for all our plotting and our planning and our bold emprise.

The men who had done this thing had been warned. They had fled the neighbourhood, cheated us, and perchance the police. Even Farman admitted as much when he called us together and deigned, for the first time, to share a confidence.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I cannot blame myself. The man Bedotte was here an hour ago--I knew that Madame Gastonard was here at sunset. You see what has happened--there has been a quarrel, and this woman has been killed. I would have come to Bougival sooner if it had been safe to come--but I was afraid for Madame Gastonard while the showman Gondré was here. We set a trap for him and he has been taken at Asnières to-night. The other man, Bedotte, has not been sober for many days. That is why I came to the house as I did; but, believe me, if what I surmise be true, nothing has been lost by delay, and we shall have good news of Madame to-morrow. I am now to leave the police to do their own business here and to advise Monsieur Lepine of ours. We may return immediately to Paris, for our work is done.”

And so, Paddy, we left this melancholy house and returned to the car. I can still see the villa, the lamp shining from the lonely room, and the river bathed in moonlight--for the moon was up by this time and all the scene made glorious. It was something, at least, to know that my beloved wife had escaped that mean temple of death, perchance had known nothing of its secrets. None the less, I clung to the neighbourhood as to some place which should minister to my sentiment, and, determining to stay the night at St. Germain, returned thither with my companions. They, be sure, were not the men to decline such hospitality, and they sat up with me until dawn, offering a thousand explanations of Farman’s conduct, and justifying it in no way.

What was this man keeping back from us? Why did he, who had served me so faithfully many a day, serve me so ill to-night? Recollect that I had but the shabbiest of facts from him. He had told me merely that my wife had been abducted from her house by those who had known her as Mimi La Godiche at Montmartre, and who believed that they could profit by the knowledge. And upon this a talk of blackmail--yet not a word that would enlighten me, no names, no histories--nothing but the intimation. This we said again and again as we sat in my room at the Pavilion Hotel and waited for the day. Circumstance had deluded us. We could make nothing of it.

* * * * *

I had nothing from Farman yesterday, but to-day there came a little note in which, evading other issues, he tells me that the man Bedotte has been traced to Rheims, and is evidently making for Brussels; but that the police are close upon his track, and an immediate arrest is expected. “As for Madame,” he says, “the opinion is growing that she escaped from the house and need no longer be sought among these people.” But of this he will write me further at a later hour.

And so you see, Paddy, that I am tied to this hotel in as great a state of doubt and perplexity, of hope and longing, as ever mortal suffered. I know not what to decide, what to believe. Inconceivable, indeed, that Mimi should not have gone straight to Paris, if this tale of escape were true. A telegram assures me that nothing is known of her, either at the Hôtel St. Paul or at Montmartre; and had you in England any news, I doubt not it would have come to me before this. What, then, am I to say? That she has not wished to return to me? God forbid any such thought.

I will send you another letter in the morning, as soon as the event permits. Should anything happen in London, let nothing delay a telegram. Of the trivial affairs, there is a request here from the editor of the “Daily Bulletin” that I will write a second letter for him. It would serve no purpose, and I have said so. His desire to see me privately dictates the wish that you shall be my ambassador. Quit the game of golf and the perambulators and spend a quiet hour in Fleet-street. The power of the press is a wonderful thing, I assure you, but the journalist at lunch by no means terrifying. Ask the good fellow to meet you at the Savoy, and I do not think the state of parties will forbid.

How odd it seems to be writing like this. I feel it not at all. The shadows crowd upon me. If I could but say, Let there be light!

Yours, dear Paddy,
Henry Gastonard.