ormed her ever since
Luke's letter had come.

All she wanted was to be alone, and to come out of herself for awhile.
She had been alone all the afternoon, save for that brief half hour
when aunt discussed the obvious over a badly brewed cup of tea: it was
not that kind of "alone-ness" which Louisa wanted now, but rather the
solitude which a crowded street has above all the power to give.

There is a kind of sociability in any room, be it ever so
uncompromising in the matter of discomfort, but a crowded street can
be unutterably lonely, either cruelly so or kindly as the case may be.

To Louisa Harris, the commonplace society girl, accustomed to tea
fights, to dances and to dinner parties, the loneliness of this
crowded little city was eminently welcome. With her dark ulster
closely buttoned to the throat, the small hat tied under her chin,
with everything on her weather-proof and unfashionable, she attracted
no notice from the passers-by.

Not one head was turned as, with a long breath of delight, she sallied
forth from under the portico of the hotel out into the muddy, busy
street; not one glance of curiosity or interest so freely bestowed in
the streets of foreign capitals on a solitary female figure, if it be
young and comely, followed this very ordinary-looking English miss.

To the crowd she was indifferent. These men and women hurrying along,
pushing, jostling, and scurrying knew nothing of Luke, nor that she,
Louisa Harris, was the happiest woman on earth.

She turned back toward the Boulevard, meaning to take a brisk walk all
along the avenue of trees which makes a circuit round the inner part
of the town and which ultimately would lead her back to the Gare du
Nord and the Palace Hotel. It was a walk she had often done before:
save for one or two busy corners on the way, it would be fairly
solitary and peaceful.

Louisa stepped out with an honest British tread, hands buried in the
pockets of her serviceable ulster, head bent against the sudden gusts
of wind. She did not mind the darkness of the ill-lighted, wide
boulevard, and had every intention of covering the two miles in a
little more than half an hour.

How the time sped! It seemed as if she had only just left the hotel,
and already surely not a quarter of a mile away she could see
glimmering the lights of the Place Namur, the half-way point of her
walk.

She was in the Boulevard Waterloo where private houses with closed
porte-cocheres add nothi