The man saw that something serious was the matter. He dropped his perfunctory manner. “She’s sure to have left an address for the forwarding of her letters. I’ll look it up if you’ll wait a moment.” He returned. “Her letters were to be addressed Poste Restante to the General Post-office, Paris. I don’t know whether that will help you.”
Before leaving the hotel he sat down and wrote her. Then he went out and sent her a telegram:
“Yours exclusively. Telegraph your address. Will come at once and fetch you.”
He hurried home to Eden Row and packed his bag. He was up early next morning, waiting for her reply. In the evening he sent her a more urgent telegram and another letter. No answer. He thought that she must have received his messages, for he had marked his letters to be returned within a day if not called for. He cursed himself for his ill-timed coldness.
CHAPTER XXIII—HIS WAITING ENDS
A week of silence, and then—— It was eight in the evening. He was at the top of the house in his bedroom-study—the room in which he had woven so many gold optimisms. Down the blue oblong of sky, framed by his window, the red billiard-ball of the sun rolled smoothly, bound for the pocket of night.
A sharp rat-a-tat. Its meaning was unmistakable. He went leaping down the stairs, three at a time. He reached the hall just as Jane was appearing from the basement Forestalling her at the front-door, he grabbed the pinkish-brown envelope from the telegraph-boy. Ripping it open, he read:
“Sorry delay. Been Lucerne. Just returned Paris. Received all yours. Meet me to-morrow Cherbourg on board ‘Wilhelm der Grosse.’ Please start immediately.”