CHAPTER VIII.
As Mrs.Argalls's carriage rolled into Fifth Avenue, it for a moment narrowly grazed another carriage, loaded with luggage, driving up to a hotel.

The abstracted traveler within it was Paul Hathaway, who had returned from Europe that morning.
Paul entered the hotel, and, going to the register mechanically, turned its leaves for the previous arrivals, with the same hopeless patience that had for the last six weeks accompanied this habitual preliminary performance on his arrival at the principal European hotels.

For he had lost all trace of Yerba, Pendleton, Milly, and the Briones from the day of their departure.

The entire party seemed to have separated at Basle, and, in that eight-hours' start they had of him, to have disappeared to the four cardinal points.

He had lingered a few days in London to transact some business; he would linger a few days longer in New York before returning to San Francisco.
The daily papers already contained his name in the list of the steamer passengers who arrived that morning.