‘Simon,’ he said, ’don’t play any tricks on me.  If you do, I’ll thrash you first, and then dismiss you on the spot.’

’It’s through the new manager of the drapery, sir, in place of Mr. Bentley—­I forget his name.  Mr. Bentley’s room being all upset with police and accountants and things, the new manager has been using your office.  And I was in there to-day, and he was engaging a young lady for the millinery, sir.  He didn’t recognise her, not having been here long enough, but I did.  It was Miss Payne.’

‘Impossible!’

’Yes, sir; Miss Payne—­that is to say, Mrs. Tudor.  I heard him say, “Very well, you can start to-morrow morning."’

‘That’s this morning?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me this last night?’ Hugo roared.

‘It slipped my memory, sir,’ said Simon, surpassing all previous feats of insolence.

Hugo, speechless, waved him out of the room.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE LODGING-HOUSE

The thought of soon seeing her intoxicated him.  His head swam, his heart leapt, his limbs did what they liked, being forgotten.  And then, as he sobered himself, he tried seriously to find an answer to this question:  Why had she returned, as it were surreptitiously, to the very building from which her funeral was supposed to have taken place?  Could she imagine that oblivion had covered her adventure, and that the three thousand five hundred would ignore the fact that she was understood to be dead?  He found no answer—­at least, no satisfactory answer—­except that women are women, and therefore incalculable.

‘Go and see if she is there,’ he said to Simon at five minutes to nine.

‘She is there,’ said Simon at five minutes past nine; ’in one of the work-rooms alone.’

Then Hugo put a heavy curb on his instincts, and came to a sudden resolve.

‘Tell the new drapery manager,’ he instructed Simon, ’to give instructions to Mrs. Tudor, or Miss Payne, whichever she calls herself, that she is to meet him in my central office at six o’clock this evening.  He, however, is not to be there.  She is to wait in the room alone, if I have not arrived.  Inform no one that I have returned from Paris.  I am now going out for the day.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Hugo thereupon took train to Ealing.  He walked circuitously through the middle of the day from Ealing to Harrow, alone with his thoughts in the frosty landscape.  From Harrow he travelled by express to Euston, reaching town at five-thirty.  Somehow or other the day had passed.  He got to Sloane Street at six, and ascended direct to his central office.

Had his orders been executed?  Would she be waiting?  As he hesitated outside the door he was conscious that his whole frame shook.  He entered silently.

Yes, she was there.  She sat on the edge of a chair near the fire, staring at the fire.  She was dressed in the customary black.  Ah! it was the very face he had seen in the coffin, the same marvellous and incomparable features; not even sadder, not aged by a day; the same!