This letter came to Newman in the morning; in the evening he started for Paris.  His wound began to ache with its first fierceness, and during his long bleak journey the thought of Madame de Cintre’s “life-time,” passed within prison walls on whose outer side he might stand, kept him perpetual company.  Now he would fix himself in Paris forever; he would extort a sort of happiness from the knowledge that if she was not there, at least the stony sepulchre that held her was.  He descended, unannounced, upon Mrs. Bread, whom he found keeping lonely watch in his great empty saloons on the Boulevard Haussmann.  They were as neat as a Dutch village, Mrs. Bread’s only occupation had been removing individual dust-particles.  She made no complaint, however, of her loneliness, for in her philosophy a servant was but a mysteriously projected machine, and it would be as fantastic for a housekeeper to comment upon a gentleman’s absences as for a clock to remark upon not being wound up.  No particular clock, Mrs. Bread supposed, went all the time, and no particular servant could enjoy all the sunshine diffused by the career of an exacting master.  She ventured, nevertheless, to express a modest hope that Newman meant to remain a while in Paris.  Newman laid his hand on hers and shook it gently.  “I mean to remain forever,” he said.

He went after this to see Mrs. Tristram, to whom he had telegraphed, and who expected him.  She looked at him a moment and shook her head.  “This won’t do,” she said; “you have come back too soon.”  He sat down and asked about her husband and her children, tried even to inquire about Miss Dora Finch.  In the midst of this—­“Do you know where she is?” he asked, abruptly.

Mrs. Tristram hesitated a moment; of course he couldn’t mean Miss Dora Finch.  Then she answered, properly:  “She has gone to the other house—­in the Rue d’Enfer.”  After Newman had sat a while longer looking very sombre, she went on:  “You are not so good a man as I thought.  You are more—­you are more—­”

“More what?” Newman asked.

“More unforgiving.”

“Good God!” cried Newman; “do you expect me to forgive?”

“No, not that.  I have forgiven, so of course you can’t.  But you might forget!  You have a worse temper about it than I should have expected.  You look wicked—­you look dangerous.”

“I may be dangerous,” he said; “but I am not wicked.  No, I am not wicked.”  And he got up to go.  Mrs. Tristram asked him to come back to dinner; but he answered that he did not feel like pledging himself to be present at an entertainment, even as a solitary guest.  Later in the evening, if he should be able, he would come.