At last Miss Pearson came to join him. After a few polite remarks and explanations, he at once asked for Mlle. de Sézery, as if he had a right to her and all hypocrisy was out of place, under the circumstances.
"She is not here," said Miss Pearson, whose frank determined face was severely set this morning.
"I beg of you, Madame, to tell me where I can find her."
"But I do not know."
"You do not know? But you have seen her.... Where is she hidden? I have the right to know. You have not seen her? ... Well ... But you understand that I have everything to fear."
Miss Pearson realized the anguish which the man was suffering, and putting aside her reserve, she betrayed as much of her secret as she could:
"You need have no fear for her life, Monsieur. Now it is useless to ask me any more. I shall not answer you."
He tried, however, eloquently, passionately, despairingly, but obtained no information. The momentary pity of Miss Pearson had not affected her loyalty. He left without any further information. But what he had heard agreed with his expectations. Anne had fled from France. Anne was in England—perhaps at Bladen Lodge, but he could not be sure. Every day he used his intelligence and his strength, which was exhausting itself in the unprofitable rôle of detective; he had the surroundings of Bolton Gardens watched; visited M. Portal, who knew nothing, asked about Lord Howard, who was shooting on his estate in Scotland: in his distress, he imagined that Mlle. de Sézery, in leaving him thus, and not revealing her whereabouts, must have tired of her irregular living, meant to take up her life alone and live it according to her own fancies. Broken down by fatigue, he rested only a few hours in the evening, having gained nothing from his search. The next day he took it up again, assisted by a French detective, and setting out in another direction, he took the train for Liverpool. He looked on the registers at the steamship offices, through the lists of passengers going to America or India, but Anne's name was not to be found among them. She had been able to disguise herself. He questioned the clerks. How could they recall a face, a woman's figure in such a crowd? However, there was a Miss Lewisham with auburn hair. And golden eyes? They did not know at the offices whether or not she had golden eyes. He went back by way of Southampton, began the same questioning with as little success. Anne was lost to him.
By a phenomenon, usual in the history of passions, he restored to the absent one all the attributes which, little by little he had taken from her. Their last months together had not been pleasant. Anne had been tired and generally sad after her illness. She reproached herself everlastingly about her youth and her complexion, which were fading. He patiently bore these complaints, which were the result of an excess of sensitiveness and of that melancholy natural to those who, too early in life and without preparation, have endured the miseries and humiliations of fate. But no man who is at work can entirely suppress the boredom he meets with in his home, nor the displeasure he experiences in listening to lamentations. Their intellectual life alone retained the power of a mutual bond. A chapter of the "History of the Peasant," the biography of some great man, provided material for endless discussions. Still he did not relinquish any of his ideas concerning the social order, nor did he know how to convince her of his view-point. Pure lines of classic art, the positive force of experience attracted him, when, on the contrary, she was enthusiastic about elaborate forms, and avoided realities for all Utopias. At intervals, wearied by their useless clash of opinion, they appealed to each other through their former love, and grew tender, not daring to admit to themselves that it was a compromise. And too often Albert absently went off in a direction where she could not follow him, and which she very well knew. Now, deserted by her, he did not wish to owe to her his freedom for which he had often longed, and he fancied himself linked to the memory of Anne.
The Avenue of the Observatory and the mysterious little Rue Cassini, the Allée de Mortemart at the Bois de Boulogne, the road which runs along the pond of La Reine Blanche to Chantilly, saw him pass on his pilgrimage. In these appropriate frames he could better call to mind the long golden eyes, the sorrowful mouth, and the step, light and weary at the same time. In place of spring which was blooming everywhere, he wished for autumn, whose pathetic grace had so often caressed them. Thus do our emotions crush us as they die away, and he mistook the sweetness of having loved for love itself.