“I must satisfy myself about her safety now,” I said.  “Only put yourself in my place, Jack.  How can I rest till I know more about Olivia?”

“I do put myself in your place,” he answered.  “What do you say to having a run down to this place in Basse-Normandie, and seeing for yourself whether Miss Ellen Martineau is your Olivia?”

“How can I?” I asked, attempting to hang back from the suggestion.  It was a busy time with us.  The season was in full roll, and our most aristocratic patients were in town.  The easterly winds were bringing in their usual harvest of bronchitis and diphtheria.  If I went, Jack’s hands would be more than full.  Had these things come to perplex us only two months earlier, I could have taken a holiday with a clear conscience.

“Dad will jump at the chance of coming back for a week,” replied Jack; “he is bored to death down at Fulham.  Go you must, for my sake, old fellow.  You are good for nothing as long as you’re so down in the mouth.  I shall be glad to be rid of you.”

We shook hands upon that, as warmly as if he had paid me the most flattering compliments.

CHAPTER THE FORTY-SECOND.

NOIREAU

In this way it came to pass that two evenings later I was crossing the Channel to Havre, and found myself about five o’clock in the afternoon of the next day at Falaise.  It was the terminus of the railway in that direction; and a very ancient conveyance, bearing the name of La Petite Vitesse, was in waiting to carry on any travellers who were venturesome enough to explore the regions beyond.  There was space inside for six passengers, but it smelt too musty, and was too full of the fumes of bad tobacco, for me; and I very much preferred sitting beside the driver, a red-faced, smooth-cheeked Norman, habited in a blue blouse, who could crack his long whip with almost the skill of a Parisian omnibus-driver.  We were friends in a trice, for my patois was almost identical with his own, and he could not believe his own ears that he was talking with an Englishman.

“La Petite Vitesse” bore out its name admirably, if it were meant to indicate exceeding slowness.  We never advanced beyond a slow trot, and at the slightest hint of rising ground the trot slackened into a walk, and eventually subsided into a crawl.  By these means the distance we traversed was made to seem tremendous, and the drowsy jingle of the collar-bells, intimating that progress was being accomplished, added to the delusion.  But the fresh, sweet air, blowing over leagues of fields and meadows, untainted with a breath of smoke, gave me a delicious tingling in the veins.  I had not felt such a glow of exhilaration since that bright morning when I bad crossed the channel to Sark, to ask Olivia to become mine.