For it was bounded to the end, as far as I could see, by dead-walls as of gardens.
Recognising, with a sinking heart, what this meant, I saw in a moment that all the hopes I had raised on Simon Fleix's discovery were baseless.

Mademoiselle had dropped the velvet bow, no doubt, but not from a window.

It was still a clue, but one so slight and vague as to be virtually useless, proving only that she was in trouble and in need of help; perhaps that she had passed through this lane on her way from one place of confinement to another.
Thoroughly baffled and dispirited, I leant for awhile against the wall, brooding over the ill-luck which seemed to attend me in this, as in so many previous adventures.

Nor was the low voice of conscience, suggesting that such failures arose from mismanagement rather than from ill-luck, slow to make itself heard.

I reflected that if I had not allowed myself to be robbed of the gold token, mademoiselle would have trusted me; that if I had not brought her to so poor an abode as my mother's, she would not have been cajoled into following a stranger; finally, that if I had remained with her, and sent Simon to attend to the horses in my place, no stranger would have gained access to her.
But it has never been my way to accept defeat at the first offer, and though I felt these self-reproaches to be well deserved, a moment's reflection persuaded me that in the singular and especial providence which had brought the velvet knot safe to my hands I ought to find encouragement.