No, it was no use my waiting with that hope.

Her mad scheme, whatever it was, I felt was planted deeply, her resolve fixed.  It was true that three months before, after just such a cruel letter, she had come suddenly back to me, having failed in her resolution.  I remembered that, and paused suddenly at the recollection.  But then that was different.  Then, infidelity to me had been in the question.  Now I knew that wherever she was going it was not to another lover.

Whatever her foolish idea was, some benefit to me was mixed up with it in her mind.

And then, suddenly, in a tender rush of passionate reminiscence that would not be denied, the knowledge came home to me that, whatever her faults might be, however foolish and maddening her actions, no one had ever loved me as she had done, as unselfishly, with the same abandonment of self.

The hot tears came scalding up under my lids.  I picked up the little crumpled sheet of paper I had so savagely crushed, smoothed it out, folded it, and put it in my breast pocket.

Then I turned to my packing.  We had only taken rooms here.  By paying I was free to leave at any moment.

Her things?  What should I do with them?  Keep them with me or send them away to her bankers?

I thought the latter, and turned to gather up her clothes and put them in her portmanteau.  My brain seemed bursting with a wild agony of resentment as I took up first one thing and then another:  the touch of them seemed to burn me.  Then, when I was half-way through a trunk; I stopped short.  Was I wise to accept the situation at all?  Perhaps I could follow her and find out, after all, what this mystery meant.

We were in a small country place, but there was a fairly good service of trains to town; one I knew left in the morning at seven, she might have taken that.  I could go to the station and find out.

Filled suddenly with that heart-rending longing for the sight and touch of the loved one again that is so unendurable in the first hours of separation, I thought I would do that, and I left the half-filled trunk and went downstairs to the hall.

The two maids were standing there waiting, and they stared at me as I passed and put on my hat.

“Please, sir, are you ready for breakfast?  It’s gone half-past ten.”

“No,” I said shortly.  “I am going out first.”

“Will Mrs. Lonsdale be coming down, sir?”

I stopped short.

“No, Mrs. Lonsdale has gone out already,” I answered, and went on through the door.

I didn’t care what they thought.  When one is in great pain, physical or mental, nothing seems to matter except that pain.

I walked fast to the station, about a mile distant, and made enquiries as discreetly as I could.

“No,” was the unanimous answer.  Mrs. Lonsdale had certainly not left there by any train that morning, nor been there at all, nor hired a fly from there.  They were all quite sure of that.