ure in my trip, and my
spirits rose as I approached Paris. I saw myself, too, from
the dramatic standpoint, and I was pleased with my role of the
trusted friend bringing back the errant husband to his
forgiving wife. I made up my mind to see Strickland the
following evening, for I felt instinctively that the hour must
be chosen with delicacy. An appeal to the emotions is little
likely to be effectual before luncheon. My own thoughts were
then constantly occupied with love, but I never could imagine
connubial bliss till after tea.

I enquired at my hotel for that in which Charles Strickland
was living. It was called the Hotel des Belges. But the
concierge, somewhat to my surprise, had never heard of it.
I had understood from Mrs. Strickland that it was a large and
sumptuous place at the back of the Rue de Rivoli. We looked
it out in the directory. The only hotel of that name was in
the Rue des Moines. The quarter was not fashionable; it was
not even respectable. I shook my head.

"I'm sure that's not it," I said.

The concierge shrugged his shoulders. There was no other
hotel of that name in Paris. It occurred to me that
Strickland had concealed his address, after all. In giving
his partner the one I knew he was perhaps playing a trick on him.
I do not know why I had an inkling that it would appeal
to Strickland's sense of humour to bring a furious stockbroker
over to Paris on a fool's errand to an ill-famed house in a
mean street. Still, I thought I had better go and see.
Next day about six o'clock I took a cab to the Rue des Moines,
but dismissed it at the corner, since I preferred to walk to the
hotel and look at it before I went in. It was a street of
small shops subservient to the needs of poor people, and about
the middle of it, on the left as I walked down, was the Hotel
des Belges. My own hotel was modest enough, but it was
magnificent in comparison with this. It was a tall, shabby
building, that cannot have been painted for years, and it had
so bedraggled an air that the houses on each side of it looked
neat and clean. The dirty windows were all shut. It was not
here that Charles Strickland lived in guilty splendour with
the unknown charmer for whose sake he had abandoned honour and duty.
I was vexed, for I felt that I had been made a fool of,
and I nearly turned away without making an enquiry. I went in
only to be able to tell Mrs. Strickland that I had done my best.

The door was a