"But if I am to promise this, will you not promise me something in return?" he asked, with a tremble in his voice that he could not control.
"What is it you wish me to promise?" she inquired suspiciously. "You must tell me first."
"It is that you will not leave Paris without first informing me," he answered. "I will not ask you to tell me where you are going, or ask for an interview. All I desire is that you should let me know that you are leaving the city."
She was silent for a moment.
"If you will give me your address, I will promise to write and let you know," she said at last.
"I thank you," he answered. Then, refusing to allow him to accompany her any farther, she held out her hand and bade him good-bye. Having done so, she passed up the Broad Walk in the direction they had come, and presently was lost to his view.
"Well, I am a fool if ever there was one," said Browne to himself when he was alone. "If only I had kept a silent tongue in my head about that visit to the Warwick Road, I should not be in the hole I am now. I've scored one point, however; she has promised to let me know when she leaves Paris. I will stay here until that time arrives, on the chance of meeting her again, and then——. Well, what matters what happens then? How sweet she is!"
The young man heaved a heavy sigh, and returned to his hotel by the Rue de Rivoli.
From that moment, and for upwards of a week, he neither saw nor heard anything further of her. Although he paraded the streets with untiring energy, and even went so far as to pay periodical visits on foot to the Rue Jacquarie, he was always disappointed. Then assistance came to him, and from a totally unexpected quarter.
Upon returning to his hotel, after one of his interminable peregrinations, he found upon the table in his sitting-room a note, written on pale-pink paper and so highly scented that he became aware of its presence there almost before he entered the room. Wondering from whom it could have come, for the writing was quite unknown to him, he opened it and scanned the contents. It was written in French, and, to his surprise, proved to be from Madame Bernstein.