"'But there is still a third version, to which in England great importance has been attached for some considerable time, and according to it Vögel is simply a prisoner in Bomon. An expedition has even set out in search of him.'
"'All the same, his death is very plainly proved.'
"'I agree with you, but you must remember that the existence of Livingstone has just been established, and for him we have already worn mourning two or three times, and each time in consequence of reports worthy of all credence.'
"'To what does all this tend?' asked I.
"She looked at me, did not answer a single word, and, a few moments afterwards, without deigning to explain herself more fully, allowed me to retire.
"I resumed my walk on deck, so that I might reflect on the singular interview in which I had just borne a part."
CHAPTER XVII.
M. de Pommerelle, one of the most popular members of that club where the momentous game of baccarat, which we have already described, took place, seized the opportunity of delivering himself to his three friends, M. de Morin, Périères, and Delange, on the evening before their departure, in something like the following terms—
"My dear friends, I adore travels, I burn to accept your invitation to follow you to Africa, and I would give my whole fortune, as well as the contents of the public exchequer, especially the latter, to pay a visit in your society to those marvellous regions which you are going to traverse. And nothing would be easier for me than to accompany you. I am a bachelor and an orphan, and though I have a few relatives, scattered here and there about the left bank of the Seine, from the Esplanade des Invalides to the Rue du Bac, they are such utter strangers to me that I do not care one jot about them. Friends I have none, except yourselves. I have no incumbrances whatever, and my private income is ample enough to allow or my following you and giving myself up, without the slightest risk of ruin, to any amount of African dissipation. But, notwithstanding all this, I am not going with you. And now for my reasons—
"I am Parisian to the back-bone, and as thoroughly a man about town as it is possible for any human being to be. I had scarcely left Paris, last summer, to go to Trouville, at my doctor's suggestion, for fear of cholera, indeed I had not got beyond Maison-Lafitte, before I was tempted to take a return train. By the time I reached Nantes I was restless and uneasy, and I would have given anything if I could have set eyes on the steps of Tortoni's. At Elbeuf I was a prey to the deepest dejection, and everybody else in the carriage seemed to be similarly affected. You would have thought it was a mourning coach, bringing back from the cemetery a cargo of rightful heirs disinherited by the defunct. At Serquigny the refreshment-room failed to charm. I absolutely refused to go into it. I did not want anything and, if I had, I could not have taken it, for my stomach was as dejected as my heart. The sight of the pastures of Liseaux and the cattle grazing on the plain gave fresh impulse to my melancholy. The silence, the calm, the repose of nature affected my nerves, and my agitation became extreme. My fellow passengers grew uneasy and huddled together in alarm. When I arrived at Trouville, I rushed into my room at the hotel, closed the shutters so that I might not catch sight of the sea, and burst into a flood of tears. I need scarcely tell you that on the following morning I left for Paris by the first train, and that I told the cholera it might seize on me, do whatever it liked with me, on condition that it did not banish me from Paris.