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312 as he was that night when he had asked me why I need leave him, and I, impelled by a fatal feminine coquetry, had rushed away, leaving his passionate question unanswered. Perhaps I might have saved him then if—no, it would not bear thinking about. I would go to his assistance at once, flinging all conventionalities to the winds.

I hastily packed a small valise, ordered a hansom, and one hour after I had become acquainted with the Telegraph article, I was on my way to the Charing Cross Station. I was not afraid of meeting anybody, as I had been on a former journey, also taken in the interests of my miserable marriage. I did not care who saw me, and yet, as though to contradict this mental avowal, I gave a sigh of relief as I found the railway carriage, which took me to Folkestone, unoccupied.

I arrived in Paris early the following morning, before the sleepy officials at the Gare du Nord, seemed to have shaken off their slumbers. I had no time to think of putting up at any hotel; speed was a question of life and death