He was in suspense all day about his mysteriously important bag.  Though handbills had been hastily printed and scattered over the country, there was no certainty as to when we should hear or whether we should hear at all.  Late in the evening, however, as we were finishing dinner in the salle-a-manger, at the same table with Gaeta and her friends, a message came that a man desired to see the young monsieur who had advertised for a lost bag.

The Boy excused himself, and jumped up.  I should have liked to go with him, but courtesy to the ladies forbade, and I sat still, feeling guilty of disloyalty somehow, nevertheless, because of a look he threw me.  It seemed to say, “We were such friends, but a woman has come between.  My affairs are nothing to you now.”

I had thought that he would be back in time for coffee, but he did not appear, and the curiosity of Gaeta, who had been restless since the Boy’s departure, could no longer be kept within bounds.  “Do go and see if he has got that wonderful bag,” she said.  “He might come to tell us!”

I obeyed, nothing loth, but only to learn from the concierge that the young gentleman had gone away with the man who had called.

“Did he leave no message?” I asked.

“No, Monsieur.  He talked with the man here in the hall for a few minutes; then he ran upstairs and soon came down again with a cap and coat.  Immediately after, he and the man went out together.”

“What sort of man was he?”

“An Italian, Monsieur; a very rough-looking peasant-fellow of middle age, poorly dressed in his working clothes.  I have never seen him before.”

I did not like this description, nor the news the concierge had given.  It was nine o’clock, and very dark, for it had begun to rain towards evening, and a monotonous drip, drip mingled with the plash of the fountain in the garden.  Grim fancies came knocking at the door of my brain.  It was a mad thing for a boy, little more than a child, to go out alone in the night with a stranger, a “rough-looking peasant-fellow,” who pretended to know something of the vanished bag; to go out, leaving no word of his intentions, nor the direction he would take.  As like as not, the man was a villain who scented rich prey in a tourist offering a reward of five thousand francs for a lost piece of luggage.

As I thought of the brave, innocent little comrade walking unsuspectingly into some trap from which I could have saved him had I been by his side, a sensation of physical sickness came over me.

“How long is it since they went out?” I asked quickly.

“Ten minutes, at most, Monsieur.”

I could have shaken the concierge’s hand for this good news, for there was hope of catching them up.  I was in dinner jacket and pumps, but I did not wait to make a dash upstairs for hat or coat.  I borrowed the blue, gold-handed cap of the concierge, not caring two pence for my comical appearance, which would have sent Gaeta into peals of silver laughter, and out into the rain I went, turning up the collar of my jacket.