il afterwards.
I had been back and forth all the morning from the door to the gates,
and from the gates to the door, in an agony lest Louis should have to
pass it on his way out.

I was to have a despatch from Toulon where Louis was to pass the night,
two hours from St. Marcel, and another from Nice, some few hours
further, the next day. I waited one, two, three, four days, and no word
came. Neither telegram nor letter. The evening of the fourth day I went
to Marseilles and telegraphed to the Toulon and Nice stations and to the
bureau of police. I had been pouring out letters to every place I could
think of. The people at Marseilles were very kind and advised me to take
no further steps to find my husband. He was certainly dead, they said.
It was plain that he stopped at some little station on the road,
speechless and dying, and it was now too late to do anything; I had much
better return at once to my friends. "Eet ofen 'appens so," said the
Secretary, and "Oh yes, all right, very well," added a Swiss in a
sympathetic voice. I waited all night at Marseilles and got no answer,
all the next day and got no answer; then I went back to St. Marcel and
there was nothing there. At eight I started on the train with Lloyd who
had come for his holidays, but it only took us to Toulon where again I
telegraphed. At last I got an answer the next day at noon. I waited at
Toulon for the train I had reason to believe Louis travelled by,
intending to stop at every station and inquire for him until I got to
Nice. Imagine what those days were to me. I never received any of the
letters Louis had written to me, and he was reading the first he had
received from me when I knocked at his door. A week afterwards I had an
answer from the police. Louis was much better: the change and the
doctor, who seems very clever, have done wonderful things for him. It
was during this first day of waiting that I received your letter. There
was a vague comfort in it like a hand offered in the darkness, but I did
not read it until long after.

We have had many other wild misadventures, Louis has twice (started)
actually from Nice under a misapprehension. At this moment I believe him
to be at Marseilles, stopping at the Hotel du Petit Louvre; I am
supposed to be packing here at St. Marcel, afterwards we are to go
somewhere, perhaps to the Lake of Geneva. My nerves were so shattered by
the terrible suspense I endured that memorable week that I have not been
fit