erted. I had hoped I
might see something of Mrs. Lascelles; she was not one of those in the
glass veranda. I now looked in the drawing-room, but neither was she
there. Returning to the empty hall, I passed a minute peering through
the locked glass door of the pigeon-holes in which the careful concierge
files the unclaimed letters. There was nothing for me that I could
discern, in the C pigeon-hole; but next door but one, under E, there lay
on the very top a letter which caught my eye and more. It had not been
through any post. It was a note directed to R. Evers, Esq., in a hand
that I knew instinctively to be that of Mrs. Lascelles, though I had
never seen it in my life before. It was a good hand, but large and bold
and downright as herself.

The concierge stood in the doorway, one eye on the disappearing
Matterhorn, one on the experts and others in animated conclave round the
still inaccessible telescope. I touched the concierge on the arm.

"Did you see Mrs. Lascelles this morning?"

The man's eyes opened before his lips.

"She has gone away, sir."

"I know," I said, having indeed divined no less. "What train did she
catch?"

"The first one from here. That also catches the early train from
Zermatt."

"I am sorry," I said after a pause. "I hoped to see Mrs. Lascelles
before she went; now I must write. She left you an address, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes, sir."

"I shall ask you for it later on. No letters for me, I suppose?"

"No, sir."

"Sure?"

"I will look again."

And I looked with him, over his shoulder; but there was nothing; and
the note for Bob Evers now inspired me with a tripartite blend of
curiosity, envy, and apprehension. I would have had a last word from the
same hand myself; had it been never so scornful, this silent scorn was
the harder sort to bear. Also I wanted much to know what her last word
was to Bob--and dreaded more what it might be.

There remained the unexpected triumph of having got rid of my lady after
all. That is not to be belittled even now. It is a triumph to succeed in
any undertaking, more especially when one has abandoned one's own last
hope of such success. The unpleasant character of this particular
emprise made its eventual accomplishment in some ways the greater matter
for congratulation in my eyes. At least I had done my part. I had come
to hate it, but the thing was done, and it had been a fairly difficult
thing to do. It was impossible not to plume oneself a little