And Madame la Comtesse?  In respect of that one memory again drew a blank, but remained unsatisfied.  When one thought of her some remote, faint chord of reminiscence thrilled and hummed, but never recognisably.  Not that there was anything remarkable in this:  if one cared to look for them, the world was thronged with women such as she, handsome, spirited, well-groomed animals endued with some little distinction of manner, native or acquired, with every appeal to the senses and more or less, generally spurious, to the intelligence.  They made the theatre possible in France, leavened the social life of the half-world, fluttered conspicuously and often disastrously through circles of more sedate society, had their portraits in every Salon, their photographs in every issue of the fashionable journals.  Some made history, others fiction:  either would be insufferably dull lacking their influence.  But they were as much alike as so many peas, out of their several shells, and the man who saw one inevitably remembered all.

Setting aside then the theory of positive personal animus, what other reason could there be for the effort to fasten upon Duchemin suspicion of identity with the late Lone Wolf?

A sinister consideration, if any, and one, Duchemin suspected, not unconnected with the much-talked-about jewels of Madame de Montalais...

But it was absurd to believe that persons fostering a design of such nature would so deliberately and obviously advertise their purpose!

Cheerfully admitting that he was an imbecile to think of such a thing, Duchemin set his mental alarm for six the following morning, rose at that hour, and by eight had tramped the five miles between Nant and the nearest railway station, Combe-Redonde; where he despatched a code telegram to London, requesting any information it might have or be able to obtain concerning Mr. Whitaker Monk of New York and the several members of his party; the said information to be forwarded in code to await the arrival of Andre Duchemin at the Hotel du Commerce, Millau.

And then, partly to kill time, partly to get himself in trim for to-morrow’s trip, which he meant to make strictly in character as the pedestrian tourist, he walked round three sides of a square in returning to Nant—­by way, that is, of Sauclieres and the upper valley of the Dourbie.

In the rich sunshine that fell from a cloudless sky—­even the twin peaks that stood sentinel over Nant had shamelessly put off their yashmaks for the day—­the rain-fresh world was sweet to see; and Duchemin found himself consuming leagues with heels strangely light; or he thought their lightness strange until he discovered the buoyance of his heart, which wasn’t strange at all.  He knew too well the cause of that; and had given over fretting about the inevitable.  The sum of his philosophy was now:  What must be, must .It would have been difficult to be unhappy in the knowledge that one retained still the capacity to love generously, honourably, expecting nothing, exacting nothing, regretting nothing, not even in anticipation of the ultimate, inevitable heartache.