morning. Arrangements had been made to publish simultaneously
in the principal capitals of the world, and the publishers had been busy
for several months accumulating paper to meet the unparalleled demand
for this vast first edition.... Eustace knocked three times at the study
door to announce that luncheon was served, but Paul continued his
reading. During the afternoon he caused a fire to be lighted in the
study grate.

It was late evening before he left the house, and he set out with no
conscious objective in view, yet subconsciously he was already come to
his journey's end. His ideas were chaotic, and he seemed to be
spiritually adrift. That his book was indeed the Key he was unable to
doubt. He had truly grasped the stupendous truth underlying that
manifestation called life, but seeking to discern retrospectively the
path whereby he had pierced to the heart of the labyrinth he found
confusion and stood dismayed before the dazzling jewel which he had
unearthed. The past intruded subtly upon him, and he was all but swept
away by sorrowful memories of Don. He saw him coming along the Pilgrim's
Way and heard his cheery greeting as he stepped upon the terrace of
Hatton Towers.

Where that night's wandering led him he knew not, but there were those
who saw him passing along Limehouse Causeway as if in quest of the
Chinese den where once he and Thessaly had watched men smoke opium, and
others who spoke to him, but without receiving acknowledgment, in the
neighbourhood of Westminster Cathedral. He appeared, too, at the Cafe
Royal, standing just within the doorway and looking from table to table
as one who seeks a friend, but went out again without addressing a word
to anyone. At a late hour he saw a light shining from a casement window
and mechanically he pressed the knob of a bell above which appeared the
number 23. Flamby opened the door and Paul stood looking at her in the
dusk.

XII

"Oh," said Flamby, "I had given you up."

She wore a blue and white kimono and had little embroidered Oriental
slippers on her feet. Under the light of the silk-shaded lamp her hair
gleamed wonderfully. She had matured since that day in Bluebell Hollow,
when Paul and Don had first seen her. The world had not hardened her and
the curves of her face were almost childlike, yet there was something
gone from her eyes and something new come to replace it. Resourcefulness
was there, but no hint of boldness and her moods of timidity were