support he could
give them. He went out with them in the afternoon to the Hotel de la
Terrasse at St. Germain. The Duke, a nervous hypochondriac, could not
sleep in the noise of Paris, and was accustomed to a certain apartment
in this well-known hotel, which was often reserved for him. Jacob left
them about six o'clock to return to Paris. He was to meet one of the
Embassy attaches--an old Oxford friend--at the Cafe Gaillard for dinner.
He dressed at the "Rhin," put on an overcoat, and set out to walk to the
Rue Gaillard about half-past seven. As he approached the "Mirabeau," he
saw a cab with luggage standing at the door. A man came out with the
hotel _concierge_. To his astonishment, Delafield recognized Warkworth.

The young officer seemed in a hurry and out of temper. At any rate, he
jumped into the cab without taking any notice of the two _sommeliers_
and the _concierge_ who stood round expectant of francs, and when the
_concierge_ in his stiffest manner asked where the man was to drive,
Warkworth put his head out of the window and said, hastily, to
the _cocher_:

"D'abord, a la Gare de Sceaux! Puis, je vous dirai. Mais depechez-vous!"

The cab rolled away, and Delafield walked on.

Half-past seven, striking from all the Paris towers! And Warkworth's
intention in the morning was to leave the Gare de Lyon at 7.15. But it
seemed he was now bound, at 7.30, for the Gare de Sceaux, from which
point of departure it was clear that no reasonable man would think of
starting for the Eternal City.

"_D'abord,_ a la Gare de Sceaux!"

Then he was not catching a train?--at any rate, immediately. He had some
other business first, and was perhaps going to the station to deposit
his luggage?

Suddenly a thought, a suspicion, flashed through Delafield's mind, which
set his heart thumping in his breast. In after days he was often puzzled
to account for its origin, still more for the extraordinary force with
which it at once took possession of all his energies. In his more
mystical moments of later life he rose to the secret belief that God had
spoken to him.

At any rate, he at once hailed a cab, and, thinking no more of his
dinner engagement, he drove post-haste to the Nord Station. In those
days the Calais train arrived at eight. He reached the station a few
minutes before it appeared. When at last it drew up, amid the crowd on
the platform it took him only a few seconds to distinguish the dark and
elegant head of Julie L