We lunched at the Ritz, and in the afternoon took a taxi into the Bois, where we spent an hour upon a seat in one of the by-paths of that beautiful wood of the Parisians. On our return to the hotel, Sylvia was all eagerness for a message, but there was none.
“Ah! he is discreet!” she exclaimed to me, when the concierge had given her a negative reply. “He fears to send me word openly.”
At ten o’clock that night, however, she had exchanged her dinner gown for a dark stuff dress, and, with a small black hat, and a boa about her neck, she came to kiss me.
“I won’t be very long, dearest,” she said cheerily. “I’ll get back the instant I can. Don’t worry after me. I shall be perfectly safe, I assure you.”
But recollections of Reckitt and his dastardly accomplice arose within me, and I hardly accepted her assurance, even though I made pretence of so doing.
For a few moments I held her in my arms tenderly, then releasing her, she bade me au revoir merrily, and we descended into the hall together.
A taxi was called, and I heard her direct the driver to go to the Boulevard Pereire. Then, waving her hand from the cab window, she drove away.
Should I follow? To spy upon her would be a mean action. It would show a lack of confidence, and would certainly irritate and annoy her. Yet was she not in peril? Had she not long ago admitted herself to be in some grave and mysterious danger?
I had only a single moment in which to decide. Somehow I felt impelled to follow and watch that she came to no harm; yet, at the same time, I knew that it was not right. She was my wife, and I dearly loved her and trusted her. If discovered, my action would show her that I was suspicious.
Still I felt distinctly apprehensive, and it was that apprehension which caused me, a second later, to seize my hat, and, walking out of the hotel, hail a passing taxi, and drive quickly to the quiet, highly respectable boulevard to which she had directed her driver.