"Alphonse is with us," she would write, and nothing else; or "Lucille keeps well and is ever gay," with which scant details I had to content myself.
Twice she invited me to pass some days, or weeks, if it could be so arranged, at the Rue des Palmiers, and twice I refused.

For in truth I scarcely wished to meet Madame de Clericy until my chain was pieced together and I could lay before her a tale of evidence that had no weak link in it.
In the month of September I journeyed to Paris, staying there but two days, and so arranging my movements that I met neither Madame de Clericy and her daughter nor Alphonse.

I succeeded beyond my expectations in forging an important link.
"Perhaps, as you cannot leave your estates just now," Madame had written, "you will come to us at La Pauline towards the end of the vintage.

Indeed, my friend, I must ask you to make an effort to do so, for I learn that the harvest will be a heavy one, and your judgment will be required in financial matters since you are so good as to place it at our disposal." To this I had returned a vague answer, thinking that before that time Alphonse might have news to tell us which would alter many arrangements and a few lives.

For now that he had recovered a greater part of his vast wealth there could, assuredly, be no reason for further delay in pressing his suit _aupres de_ Lucille.
I had, by the way, propounded to John Turner the problem that would arise in the case of our having to conclude that Miste's confederate had perished in the ill-fated _Principe Amadeo_, taking out of this world, if he could not carry it to the next, the remainder of Giraud's fortune.
"Within five years," he answered me, "Giraud will be repaid the value of the missing drafts, for we have now a sufficient excuse to stop payment of them, assuming, as we may safely do, that the bills were lost at sea." In the same letter my old friend imparted some news affecting myself.
"I am," he wrote, "getting on in years, and fatter.