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
Pa