tained this morning and now lying before me is not the document of
irony it seems, and that in a week's time we shall look back on this
nightmare of a day with a smile, and look forward to the future with
laughter in our hearts.

But to-night I am very lonely. "Loneliness," says Epictetus, "is a
certain condition of the helpless man." And I am helpless. All my aid
lies in the learning in those books; and all the learning in all
those books on all sides from floor to ceiling cannot render me one
infinitesimal grain of practical assistance. If only Pasquale, man of
action, swift intelligence, were here! I can only trust to the trained
methods of the unimaginative machine who has set out to trace Carlotta
by means of the scar on her forehead and the mole behind her ear. And
meanwhile I am very lonely. My sole friend, to whom I could have turned,
Mrs. McMurray, is still at Bude. She is to have a child, I understand,
in the near future, and will stay in Cornwall till the confinement is
over. Her husband, even were he not amid the midnight stress of his
newspaper office, I should shrink from seeking. He is a Niagara of a
man. Judith--I can go to her no more. And though Antoinette has wept
her heart out all day long, poor soul, and Stenson has conveyed by
his manner his respectful sympathy, I cannot take counsel of my own
servants. I have gathered into my arms the one-eyed cat, and buried my
face in his fur--where Carlotta's face has been buried. "That's the way
I should like to be kissed!" Oh, my dear, my dear, were you here now,
that is the way I should kiss you!

I have gone upstairs and wandered about her room. Antoinette has
prepared it for her reception to-night, as usual. The corner of the
bedclothes is turned down, and her night-dress, a gossamer thing with
cherry ribbons, laid out across the bed. At the foot lie the familiar
red slippers with the audacious heels; her dressing-gown is thrown in
readiness over the back of a chair; even the brass hot water can stands
in the basin--and it is still hot. And I know that the foolish woman is
wide-awake overhead waiting for her darling. I kissed the pillow still
fragrant of her where her head rested last night, and I went downstairs
with a lump in my throat.

Again I sit at my work-table and, to save myself from going mad with
suspense, jot down in my diary* the things that have happened. Put in
bald words they scarcely seem credible.

* It will be borne in mind th