uickly,
a swift procession of gleaming lights....

As at last the red disc melted into the night, he gave a muffled groan
of anguish, for mingling with his sense of intense relief, came that of
eternal, irreparable loss.

Ironic fortune was kind to Vanderlyn that night; his return ticket from
far-away Orange, though only issued in Paris some two hours before, was
allowed to pass unchallenged; and a couple of francs bestowed on a
communicative employe drew the welcome news that a southern express
bound for Paris was about to stop at Dorgival.

IV.

It was only eleven o'clock when Vanderlyn found himself once more in the
Gare de Lyon. He walked quickly out of the great station which was
henceforth to hold for him such intimately tender and poignant memories;
and then, instead of taking a cab, he made his way on foot down to the
lonely Seine-side quays.

There, leaning over and staring down into the swift black waters of the
river, he planned out his drab immediate future.

In one sense the way was clear before him,--he must of course go on
exactly as before; show himself, that is, in his usual haunts; take the
moderate part he had hitherto taken in what he felt to be the dreary
round of so-called pleasures with which Paris was now seething. That
must be his task--his easy and yet intolerable task--during the next
week or ten days, until the disappearance of Margaret Pargeter became
first suspected, and then discovered.

But before that was likely to happen many long days would certainly go
by, for,--as is so often the case when a man and woman have become, in
secret, everything to one another, Laurence Vanderlyn and Mrs. Pargeter
had gradually detached themselves from all those whom they had once
called their friends, and even Peggy had had no intimate who would miss
a daily, or even a weekly, letter.

Indeed, it was just possible, so Vanderlyn, resting his arms on the
stone parapet, now told himself, that the first part of his ordeal might
last as long as a fortnight, that is, till Tom Pargeter came back from
England.

There was of course yet another possibility; it was conceivable that
everything would not fall out as they, or rather Peggy, had imagined.
Pargeter, for instance, might return sooner; and, if he did so, he would
certainly require his wife's immediate presence in Paris, for the
millionaire was one of those men who hate to be alone even in their
spare moments. Also more than his wife's co