Yes!" said Madame, with a sort of stoic pathos. "_He_ would.
He alone would do such a thing. But he would do it."

"And what point would he make for?"

"What point? You mean where would he go? To Battersea, no doubt, to
his cousin--and then to Italy, if he thinks he has saved enough
money to buy land, or whatever it is."

"And so good-bye to him," said Mr. May bitterly.

"Geoffrey ought to know," said Madame, looking at Geoffrey.

Geoffrey shrugged his shoulders, and would not give his comrade
away.

"No," he said. "I don't know. He will leave a message at Battersea,
I know. But I don't know if he will go to Italy."

"And you don't know where to find him in Knarborough?" asked Mr.
May, sharply, very much on the spot.

"No--I don't. Perhaps at the station he will go by train to London."
It was evident Geoffrey was not going to help Mr. May.

"Alors!" said Madame, cutting through this futility. "Go thou to
Knarborough, Geoffrey, and see--and be back at the theatre for work.
Go now. And if thou can'st find him, bring him again to us. Tell him
to come out of kindness to me. Tell him."

And she waved the young man away. He departed on his nine mile ride
through the rain to Knarborough.

"They know," said Madame. "They know each other's places. It is a
little more than a year since we came to Knarborough. But they will
remember."

Geoffrey rode swiftly as possible through the mud. He did not care
very much whether he found his friend or not. He liked the Italian,
but he never looked on him as a permanency. He knew Ciccio was
dissatisfied, and wanted a change. He knew that Italy was pulling
him away from the troupe, with which he had been associated now for
three years or more. And the Swiss from Martigny knew that the
Neapolitan would go, breaking all ties, one day suddenly back to
Italy. It was so, and Geoffrey was philosophical about it.

He rode into town, and the first thing he did was to seek out the
music-hall artistes at their lodgings. He knew a good many of them.
They gave him a welcome and a whiskey--but none of them had seen
Ciccio. They sent him off to other artistes, other lodging-houses.
He went the round of associates known and unknown, of lodgings
strange and familiar, of third-rate possible public houses. Then he
went to the Italians down in the Marsh--he knew these people always
ask for one another. And then, hurrying, he dashed to the Midland
Station, and then to the Great Central Station,