Ironic chance had so arranged that the landlady with whom he usually lodged in town, and whose house he used as a permanent address, had given up letting lodgings at the beginning of the tour, and had drifted into the limbo of London.

Jane's only guide to his whereabouts had been the tour card which he had sent her as usual, giving dates and theatres.

And the tour was over.

On the chance that Jane, not hearing from him, should address a letter to the last theatre on the list, he communicated at once with the local management.
But as local managements of provincial theatres shape their existences so as to avoid responsibilities of any kind save the maintenance of their bars and the deduction of their percentages from the box-office receipts, Paul knew that it was ludicrous to expect it to interest itself in the correspondence of an obscure member of a fourth-rate company which had once played to tenth-rate business within its mildewed walls.

Being young, he wrote also to the human envelope containing the essence of stale beer, tobacco and lethargy that was the stage doorkeeper.