that I love her."

The girl's incredulity and surprise were great. It showed in the smile
which, something like happiness, crossed her lips. She drew a long
breath; she held his eyes with hers, then she laid both her arms around
his neck and Bulstrode bent and kissed her. He held her for one moment
and his heart, if it beat for another woman, beat hard and fast and its
pulse ran through her own. Then Felicia heard the door close and the
footsteps of the man died away.

It was seven o'clock when Bulstrode found himself out in the streets.
The fresh air in a keen, salt wind poured over him. Down on the beach,
for a couple of francs he bribed an attendant to open a bath-house for
him, and a few moments later, shivering a little in the keen air, he
could have been seen running down to the sea, and in a few moments more
his strong swift strokes had carried him far out into the waters which
the summer sun even at this early hour was fast turning into blue.

When Jimmy came to himself, he found that without either seeing Mrs.
Falconer again or having even bidden a decent good-bye or godspeed to
his fiancee, he was back again in Paris. He had run away. Well, that
wasn't any new thing, he was always at it. Paris, in the month of
August, gave him a hot, desolate welcome, and it was with difficulty
that he could find a lawyer who would help him down to bedrock and put
in motion the business of winding up the affairs of Molly and her
Marquis.

De Presle-Vaulx came to town and found his champion there and brought
him many messages from the ladies as well as a letter which Bulstrode
put in his pocket to read down in the country at the chateau of
Vaulxgoron in the seclusion of his own room.

Bulstrode played the part of the "American Uncle" to perfection. He
let the old Marquis beat him at backgammon; he wandered all over the
property with the Marquise. He bought the young man for Molly Malines
and closed up his beneficent affairs in a very decent manner indeed,
but on the night when Mrs. Falconer and Miss Malines should have
arrived at the chateau, Bulstrode ran away again. From then on he
became a wandering Jew. He ran up to Norway, fished a little, then
took a motor and some people, who did not know any one whom he had ever
known, and drove them through Italy. He continued to travel a little
longer, working his way northward until finally--so he put it--dusty as
"Dusty Dog Dingo," tired as "Tired Dog Dingo," Bul