that it could not have reached her. I wandered round
and round the garden paths vainly seeking for the motive. Was it escape
from Dale? Had she, womanlike, taken the step which she was so anxious
to avoid--and in order to avoid taking which all this bother had
arisen--and given the boy his dismissal? If so, why had she not gone to
Paris or St. Petersburg or Terra del Fuego? Why Algiers? Dale abandoned
outright, the necessity for finding her husband had disappeared. Perhaps
she was coming to request me, on that account, to give up the search.
But why travel across seas and continents when a telegram or a letter
would have sufficed? She was coming at any rate; and as she gave no date
I presumed that she would travel straight through and arrive in about
forty-eight hours. This reflection caused a gleam of sunshine to
traverse my gloom. I was not physically capable of performing the
journey to Tlemcen and back before her arrival. I could, therefore,
dream among the roses of the garden for another couple of days. And when
she came, perhaps she would like to go to Tlemcen herself and try
the effect of her woman's fascinations on the Lieutenant-Colonel and
officers of the 3rd Regiment of Chasseurs d'Afrique.

In any case, her sudden departure argued well for Dale's liberation.
If the rupture had occurred I was quite contented. That is what I had
wished to accomplish. It only remained now to return to London, while
breath yet stayed in my body, and lead him diplomatically to the feet of
Maisie Ellerton. Then I would have ended my eumoirous task, and my last
happy words would be a paternal benediction. But all the same, I had set
forth to find this confounded captain and did not want to be hindered.
The sportsman's instinct which, in my robust youth, had led me to crawl
miles on my belly over wet heather in order to get a shot at a stag, I
found, somewhat to my alarm, was urging me on this chase after Captain
Vauvenarde. He was my quarry. I resented interference. Deer-stalking
then, and man-stalking now, I wanted no petticoats in the party. I
worked myself up into an absurd state of irritability. Why was she
coming to spoil the sport? I had arranged to track her husband down,
reason with him, work on his feelings, telegraph for his wife, and in
an affecting interview throw them into each other's arms. Now, goodness
knows what would happen. Certainly not my beautifully conceived _coup de
theatre_.

"And she has the impertinence