Hilliard, still musing, repeated with mechanical emphasis: 

“Yes, it would be worth while.”

Then Narramore called to Birching, and the talk became general again.

The next morning they drove about Paris, all together.  Narramore, though it was his first visit to the city, declined to see anything which demanded exertion, and the necessity for quenching his thirst recurred with great frequency.  Early in the afternoon he proposed that they should leave Paris that very evening.

“I want to see a mountain with snow on it.  We’re bound to travel by night, and another day of this would settle me.  Any objection, Birching?”

The architect agreed, and time-tables were consulted.  Hilliard drove home to pack.  When this was finished, he sat down and wrote a letter: 

“DEAR MISS MADELEY,—­My friend Narramore is here, and has persuaded me to go to Switzerland with him.  I shall be away for a week or two, and will let you hear from me in the meantime.  Narramore says I am looking vastly better, and it is you I have to thank for this.  Without you, my attempts at ‘enjoying life’ would have been a poor business.  We start in an hour or two,—­Yours ever,

“MAURICE HILLIARD.”

CHAPTER XVI

He was absent for full three weeks, and arrived with his friends at the Gare de Lyon early one morning of September.  Narramore and the architect delayed only for a meal, and pursued their journey homeward; Hilliard returned to his old quarters despatched a post-card asking Eve and Patty to dine with him that evening, and thereupon went to bed, where for some eight hours he slept the sleep of healthy fatigue.

The place he had appointed for meeting with the girls was at the foot of the Boulevard St. Michel.  Eve came alone.

“And where’s Patty?” he asked, grasping her hand heartily in return for the smile of unfeigned pleasure with which she welcomed him.

“Ah, where indeed?  Getting near to Charing Cross by now, I think.”

“She has gone back?”

“Went this very morning, before I had your card—­let us get out of the way of people.  She has been dreadfully home-sick.  About a fortnight ago a mysterious letter came for her she hid it away from me.  A few days after another came, and she shut herself up for a long time, and when she came out again I saw she had been crying.  Then we talked it over.  She had written to Mr. Dally and got an answer that made her miserable; that was the first letter.  She wrote again, and had a reply that made her still more wretched; and that was the second.  Two or three more came, and yesterday she could bear it no longer.”

“Then she has gone home to make it up with him?”

“Of course.  He declared that she has utterly lost her character and that no honest man could have anything more to say to her!  I shouldn’t wonder if they are married in a few weeks’ time.”