But to-night I am very lonely.  “Loneliness,” says Epictetus, “is a certain condition of the helpless man.”  And I am helpless.  All my aid lies in the learning in those books; and all the learning in all those books on all sides from floor to ceiling cannot render me one infinitesimal grain of practical assistance.  If only Pasquale, man of action, swift intelligence, were here!  I can only trust to the trained methods of the unimaginative machine who has set out to trace Carlotta by means of the scar on her forehead and the mole behind her ear.  And meanwhile I am very lonely.  My sole friend, to whom I could have turned, Mrs. McMurray, is still at Bude.  She is to have a child, I understand, in the near future, and will stay in Cornwall till the confinement is over.  Her husband, even were he not amid the midnight stress of his newspaper office, I should shrink from seeking.  He is a Niagara of a man.  Judith—­I can go to her no more.  And though Antoinette has wept her heart out all day long, poor soul, and Stenson has conveyed by his manner his respectful sympathy, I cannot take counsel of my own servants.  I have gathered into my arms the one-eyed cat, and buried my face in his fur—­where Carlotta’s face has been buried.  “That’s the way I should like to be kissed!” Oh, my dear, my dear, were you here now, that is the way I should kiss you !

I have gone upstairs and wandered about her room.  Antoinette has prepared it for her reception to-night, as usual.  The corner of the bedclothes is turned down, and her night-dress, a gossamer thing with cherry ribbons, laid out across the bed.  At the foot lie the familiar red slippers with the audacious heels; her dressing-gown is thrown in readiness over the back of a chair; even the brass hot water can stands in the basin—­and it is still hot.  And I know that the foolish woman is wide-awake overhead waiting for her darling.  I kissed the pillow still fragrant of her where her head rested last night, and I went downstairs with a lump in my throat.

Again I sit at my work-table and, to save myself from going mad with suspense, jot down in my diary* the things that have happened.  Put in bald words they scarcely seem credible.

* It will be borne in mind that I am writing these actual pages, afterwards, at Verona, amplifying the rough notes in my diary.  M. O.

A sudden clattering, nerve-shaking, strident peal at the front-door bell.

I flew down the stairs.  It was news of Carlotta.  It was Carlotta herself brought back to me.  My heart swelled with joy as if it would burst.  I knew that as I opened the door Carlotta would fall laughing, weeping, sobbing into my arms.

I opened the door.  It was only a police officer in plain clothes.

“Sir Marcus Ordeyne?”

“Yes.”

“We have traced the young lady all right.  She left London by the two-twenty Continental express from Victoria with Mr. Sebastian Pasquale.”