A baby shoe of white kid, soiled and still showing the shape of tiny toes, a bunch of faded ribbon, a little armless doll with staring beady eyes; and, most pathetic of all, two or three of the original chocolates the box had held—hard and colourless.
The woman raised her head and looked at herself in the mirror. She had not been crying, for her eyes were quite dry, but into them had come a look of determination, of a set purpose in which tears had no place and tenderness no part. She looked again at the articles in the box.
"A little while—not long now," she murmured, "then, perhaps I may weep."
Silently she put away the baby relics back into the wardrobe drawer. Then from the reticule she took the letter she had been reading when Edward had come upon her in the grounds. She smoothed out the creases and held it to the light on the dressing-table. It was headed from the offices of The Imparcial, and read—
"MADAM,
"Acting under your instructions, I have caused inquiries to be made by my correspondents in Paris, London and Vienna. The man Dasso, who disappeared so suddenly from Corbo, had covered his traces so well that it was not until now that we have lit upon a clue of any sort.
"My Paris correspondent in the Rue Scribe, M. Dupine, has been watching, as you suggested, the places of entertainment and the restaurants on the boulevards. Your idea that our man would appear sooner or later at one or the other of these was quite correct. M. Dupine came face to face with him in the lounge of the Folies Bergere.
"Curiously enough, Dasso seemed to scent danger, for he left hurriedly, but Dupine succeeded in following him. He tells me he (Dupine) was reading a copy of my paper at the time he saw Dasso, and attributes the latter's flight to that fact.
"Dasso left the Gare St. Lazare the next morning, travelling to Dieppe, and so across the Channel.
"Dupine, being now known by sight to Dasso, wisely refrained from following him on to the boat, where he would have certainly been observed, but wired comprehensively to a confrere in Brighton to motor over to Newhaven and take up the chase.