a discovery is not of course
ultimately possible, but what, in the interval, if I should wish to
write to her? What if I should need to see her? What if I should die?"

"Would you, in any of those cases, send for her?"

"I don't know," the Duke admitted.

"But," Jimmy asked him, "did you go to Paris this time to see the
Duchess?"

"Since you ask me frankly," the Duke admitted, "I don't think that I
did."

"At all events," the other said, "you surely did not go to spy on her,
Westboro'?"

The Duke was silent, then answered quietly:

"I should never ask a question--not if it meant a certain discovery of
something that I feared or suspected. I don't think I should ever seek
to find out something she didn't want me to know."

Bulstrode, at the blindness of a man regarding his own intentions,
smiled behind his cigar. "Well?" he helped.

"I went over to France," said the Duke--"and I suppose you'll scarcely
believe a man who you say is not a lover to be capable of such
sentimentality--simply, if possible, to have a sight of my wife, to see
her go out of the door, or to see her go in, to see her possibly get
into a carriage; and how did I know that it would not be with another
man?"

"How did you find out that she had left?"

"I asked for her at her hotel."

"The first question, then," Jimmy smiled.

"A fair one?"

"Oh, perfectly."

"I was told that the Duchess had left Paris months before."

"And then?" the other man's voice was placid as he spoke for the Duke.
"Then you went to her bankers, her bakers and candlestick makers; in
short, you asked all over the place, didn't you?"

The Duke swore gently. "Well, what would you have a man do?"

"Why I would have him do that," nodded Jimmy, "by all means. Any man
would have done so."

In the half second of interval whilst the Duke was obliged to swallow
his friend's sarcasm, Bulstrode had time to think: "Here I am, once
more in the heart of an intrigue. Its fetters are all about me and I
am wretchedly bound by honor not to do the simple, natural thing."
Then he asked boldly: "Well, what do you think about it, Westboro'?"

"Think?" Westboro' repeated, "why, that she has deliberately escaped
from me, put herself out of any possible reach; she doesn't want a
reconciliation and she has gone away. She may have gone away alone and
she may not, that I don't know, and I don't believe I want to know."

"Oh, you'll find her." It was with the most delight