re
half-way down the stairs.

"What, in Heaven's name, does all this mean?" I said, when we were once
more in the street.

"It means," replied Mueller fiercely, "that the man's a scoundrel, and
the woman, like all other women, is false."

"Then the whisper you overheard" ...

"Was only this:--'_Look in the usual place, and you will find a
letter_.' Not many words, _mon cher_, but confoundedly comprehensive!
And I who believed that girl to be an angel of candor! I who was within
an ace of falling seriously in love with her! _Sacredie_! what an idiot
I have been!"

"Forget her, my dear fellow," said I. "Wipe her out of your memory
(which I think will not be difficult), and leave her to her fate."

He shook his head.

"No," he said, gloomily, "I won't do that. I'll get to the bottom of
that man's mystery; and if, as I suspect, there's that about his past
life which won't bear the light of day--I'll save her, if I can."

CHAPTER XXXV.

WEARY AND FAR DISTANT.

Twice already, in accordance with my promise to Dalrymple, I had called
upon Madame de Courcelles, and finding her out each time, had left my
card, and gone away disappointed. From Dalrymple himself, although I had
written to him several times, I heard seldom, and always briefly. His
first notes were dated from Berlin, and those succeeding them from
Vienna. He seemed restless, bitter, dissatisfied with himself, and with
the world. Naturally unfit for a lounging, idle life, his active nature,
now that it had to bear up against the irritation of hope deferred,
chafed and fretted for work.

"My sword-arm," he wrote in one of his letters, "is weary of its
holiday. There are times when I long for the smell of gunpowder, and the
thunder of battle. I am sick to death of churches and picture-galleries,
operas, dilettantism, white-kid-glovism, and all the hollow shows and
seemings of society. Sometimes I regret having left the army--at others
I rejoice; for, after all, in these piping times of peace, to be a
soldier is to be a mere painted puppet--a thing of pipe-clay and gold
bullion--an expensive scarecrow--an elegant Guy Fawkes--a sign, not of
what is, but of what has been, and yet may be again. For my part, I care
not to take the livery without the service. Pshaw! will things never
mend! Are the good old times, and the good old international hatreds,
gone by for ever? Shall we never again have a thorough, seasonable,
wholesome, continental war? This place