They looked at each other thunderstruck. At last Loisel put on his clothes again.
"I am going back," said he, "over every foot of the way we came, to see if I cannot find it."
So he started. She remained in her ball dress without strength to go to bed, sitting on a chair, with no fire, her mind a blank.
Her husband returned about seven o'clock. He had found nothing.
He went to police headquarters, to the newspapers to offer a reward, to the cab companies, everywhere, in short, where a trace of hope led him.
She watched all day, in the same state of blank despair before this frightful disaster.
Loisel returned in the evening with cheeks hollow and pale; he had found nothing.
"You must write to your friend," said he, "that you have broken the clasp of her necklace and that you are having it repaired. It will give us time to turn around."
She wrote as he dictated.
* * * * *