After the meal was ended, and we had fed the dog, Jacqueline insisted on washing the dishes, and I showed her the kitchenette and let her do so, though I should never have need for the cheap plates and cups again.

“Now, Jacqueline, we must go,” I said.

I placed her neckpiece about her.  I closed her bag, stuffing the bills inside, and hung it on her arm.  I could not resist a smile to see the little pad covered with its maze of figures among the rolls of money.  I was afraid that the sight of it would awaken her memories, but she only looked quietly at it and put it away.

I wanted her to let me bank her money for her, but did not like to ask her.  However, of her own account she took out the bills and handed them to me.

“What a lot of money I have,” she said.  “I hardly thought there was so much money in the world, Paul.”

It was past eight when we left the house.  I carried my suit-case and, stopping at a neighbouring express office, had it sent to the Grand Central station.  And then I decided to take the dog to the animal’s home.

I did not like to do so, but was afraid, in the necessity of protecting Jacqueline, that its presence might possibly prove embarrassing, so I took it there and left it, with instructions that it was to be kept until I sent for it.  I paid a small sum of money and we departed, Jacqueline apparently indifferent to what I had done, though the animal’s distress at being parted from her disturbed my conscience a good deal.

Still it seemed the only thing to do under our circumstances.

Quebec, then, was my objective, and with no further clue than the dog-collar.  There were two trains, I found, at three and at nine.  The first, which I proposed to take, would bring us to our destination soon after nine the next day, but our morning was to be a busy one, and it would be necessary to make our preparations quickly.

A little snow was on the ground, but the sun shone brightly, and I felt that the shadows of the night lay behind us.

CHAPTER IV

SIMON LEROUX

With Jacqueline’s arm drawn through mine I paid a visit to the bank in which I had deposited my legacy, and drew out fifteen hundred dollars, next depositing Jacqueline’s money to my own account.  It amounted to almost exactly eight thousand dollars.

The receiving teller must have thought me an eccentric to carry so large a sum, and I know he thought that Jacqueline and I had just been married, for I saw him smile over the entry that he made in my bank book.

I wanted to deposit her money in her own name, but this would have involved inquiries and explanations which I was not in a position to satisfy.  So there was nothing to do but deposit it in my own, and afterward I could refund it to her.

I said that the receiving teller smiled—­he wore that indescribable congratulatory look with which it is the custom to favor the newly married.