had known nothing of Jevons.

I inquired this time for Withers and was told that he had left that
morning. I engaged a room and strolled out into the Market-Place. I
visited the Cathedral, the Belfry, and the Béguinage, in the hope of
coming suddenly across Viola and Jevons.

I did not come across them in any of those places; but I was not very
earnest about the search. I was so sure that if Withers had not lied to
me they would presently come across me at their hotel. I meant that it
should be that way, if possible: that they should come across me in a
place where they could not evade me. God only knows what I meant to say
to them when they had found me.

As I entered the hotel again I saw the proprietor's wife make a sign to
her husband. They conferred together, and sent the _concierge_ upstairs
after me. He wanted to know if I was the gentleman who had inquired the
other day for Mr. Chevons, because, if I was, Mr. Chevons had arrived the
day before yesterday and was staying in the hotel.

There was no doubt about it; his name, James Tasker Jevons, was in the
visitors' list.

Viola's was not.

From the enthusiasm of the fat proprietor and his wife you would have
supposed that Jevons and I had roamed the habitable globe for months in
search of one another; and that Jevons, at any rate, would be overpowered
with joy when he found that I was here. They said nothing about Viola.