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MUST confess at once that I might easily have displayed more acumen, and that there would have been nothing wonderful in my discerning or guessing the truth about Marie Delhasse’s movements. Yet the truth never occurred to me, never so much as suggested itself in the shape of a possible explanation. I cannot quite tell why; perhaps it conflicted too strongly with the idea of her which possessed me; perhaps it was characteristic of a temperament so different from my own that I could not anticipate it. At any rate, be the reason what it may, I did not seriously doubt that Marie Delhasse had cut the cords which bound her by a hasty flight from Avranches; and my conviction was deepened by my knowledge that an evening train left for Paris just about half an hour after Marie, having played her trick on her mother and on the Duke of Saint-Maclou, had walked out of the hotel, no man and no woman hindering her.

Under these circumstances, my work—imposed and voluntary alike—was done; and the cheering influence of the dinner to which I sat down so awoke my mind to fresh agility 101