But nowhere was there a sign of either of those two gentlemen, John Wooler and Andrew Insgate.
Farlough turned his steps toward the box office. He made an inquiry.
The official bowed politely. He handed him two letters. He bowed again and muttered mechanically, “Gehorsamster Diener!” He was from Vienna.
Putting the letters into his pocket after a quick scrutiny of the writing upon each envelope, Farlough returned to the theatre.
When the last notes had joined the echoes, he had himself driven over to the Hotel D’Angleterre. There he opened the envelopes and read the two letters.
The one from Insgate was dated at London. “At this moment,” went the screed, “I am remembering the matter of our meeting in Berlin. This is due to unexpected and inexplicable sobriety. As I may not remember again, I write now. You see, I shall not be there myself. I have managed to forget nearly all things. I began by trying the liquors of all civilization. They have succeeded in destroying my memory—except in such brief lapses as this is. And these are very rare now. By the time my money and my constitution are gone, I am sure my memory will be gone also. But as I am a sinner in agony, I swear that God in all his wisdom and wrath never invented so cruel a torment as this that I have wrought for myself. I pray that you two may not have succeeded so well.”
Farlough looked at the cold ink mutely. He pictured once again the scene at that dinner a year ago: Insgate’s nervous, aristocratic face; Wooler’s smiling cynicism.
He opened the latter’s missive. This man wrote from San Francisco. “Absent, John Wooler! Because of a woman. You see, I went the gamut of the sex. But never succeeded in forgetting until this one came into my life. When I am with her I forget everything else; when I am away from her, I remember with tenfold distinctness. So I have found heaven, and live in hell. For she happens to be another man’s wife.”
Farlough tore up the two letters slowly and burned the pieces of paper one by one at the candle by his side.