“‘He has a very lovable personality when you once know him,’ says she.  ‘All sailors are apt to be thoughtless.’

“‘I should try and break him of it later on,’ says I.

“’Besides, she was a bit of a fool herself, going away and leaving no address,’ adds she; and having reached her turning, we said good-night to one another.

“About a month passed after that without anything happening.  For the first week Marie was as merry as a kitten, but as the days went by, and no sign came, she grew restless and excited.  Then one morning she came into the Cafe twice as important as she had gone out the night before, and I could see by her face that her little venture was panning out successfully.  She waited till we had the Cafe to ourselves, which usually happened about mid-day, and then she took a letter out of her pocket and showed it me.  It was a nice respectful letter containing sentiments that would have done honour to a churchwarden.  Thanks to Marie’s suggestions, for which he could never be sufficiently grateful, and which proved her to be as wise as she was good and beautiful, he had traced Mrs. Sleight, nee Mary Godselle, to Quebec.  From Quebec, on the death of her uncle, she had left to take a situation as waitress in a New York hotel, and he was now on his way there to continue his search.  The result he would, with Miss Marie’s permission, write and inform her.  If he obtained happiness he would owe it all to her.  She it was who had shown him his duty; there was a good deal of it, but that’s what it meant.

“A week later came another letter, dated from New York this time.  Mary could not be discovered anywhere; her situation she had left just two years ago, but for what or for where nobody seemed to know.  What was to be done?

“Mam’sel Marie sat down and wrote him by return of post, and wrote him somewhat sharply—­in broken English.  It seemed to her he must be strangely lacking in intelligence.  Mary, as he knew, spoke French as well as she did English.  Such girls—­especially such waitresses—­he might know, were sought after on the Continent.  Very possibly there were agencies in New York whose business it was to offer good Continental engagements to such young ladies.  Even she herself had heard of one such—­Brathwaite, in West Twenty-third Street, or maybe Twenty-fourth.  She signed her new name, Marie Luthier, and added a P.S. to the effect that a right-feeling husband who couldn’t find his wife would have written in a tone less suggestive of resignation.

“That helped him considerably, that suggestion of Marie’s about the agent Brathwaite.  A fortnight later came a third letter.  Wonderful to relate, his wife was actually in Paris, of all places in the world!  She had taken a situation in the Hotel du Louvre.  Master Tom expected to be in Paris almost as soon as his letter.

“’I think I’ll go round to the Louvre if you can spare me for quarter of an hour,’ said Marie, ‘and see the manager.’