at if Withers had not lied to
me they would presently come across me at their hotel. I meant that it
should be that way, if possible: that they should come across me in a
place where they could not evade me. God only knows what I meant to say
to them when they had found me.

As I entered the hotel again I saw the proprietor's wife make a sign to
her husband. They conferred together, and sent the _concierge_ upstairs
after me. He wanted to know if I was the gentleman who had inquired the
other day for Mr. Chevons, because, if I was, Mr. Chevons had arrived the
day before yesterday and was staying in the hotel.

There was no doubt about it; his name, James Tasker Jevons, was in the
visitors' list.

Viola's was not.

From the enthusiasm of the fat proprietor and his wife you would have
supposed that Jevons and I had roamed the habitable globe for months in
search of one another; and that Jevons, at any rate, would be overpowered
with joy when he found that I was here. They said nothing about Viola.

And before I could ask myself what earthly motive Withers could have had
for lying to me, I concluded that he _had_ lied.

Or perhaps--it was more than likely--he had been mistaken.

Jevons, I said to myself, was bound to turn up at dinner. If Viola was in
Bruges, Viola would probably be with him. I chose a table by the door
behind a screen, where I could see everybody as they came in without
being seen first of all by anybody.

Jevons didn't turn up for dinner.

I found him later on in the evening, on the bridge outside the eastern
gate of the city. He stood motionless and alone, leaning over the parapet
and looking into the water. Away beyond the Canal a long dyke of mist
dammed back the flooding moonlight, and the things around Jevons--the
trees, the water, the bridge, the gate and its twin turrets--were
indistinct. But the man was so poured out and emptied into his posture
that I could see his dejection, his despair. The posture ought to have
disarmed me, but it didn't.

He moved away as he saw me coming, then, recognizing me, he stood his
ground. It was as if almost he were relieved to see me.

"Oh, it's you, is it?" he said.

I asked him who he thought it was, and he said he thought it was that
little beast Withers.

I said, "I daresay you did. I saw Withers this morning."

He said quite calmly he supposed that was why I was here.

I said I had been here before I had seen Withers.

"I see," he said. "H