exist. There was not the slightest doubt in my mind, and I was
positively sure that I had again seen the face I loved. I did not
hesitate, and in a few hours I was on my way back to Paris. I
could not help reflecting on my ill luck. Wandering as I had been
for many months, it might as easily have chanced that I should be
traveling in the same train with that woman, instead of going the
other way. But my luck was destined to turn for a time.

I searched Paris for several days. I dined at the principal
hotels; I went to the theaters; I rode in the Bois de Boulogne in
the morning, and picked up an acquaintance, whom I forced to drive
with me in the afternoon. I went to mass at the Madeleine, and I
attended the services at the English Church. I hung about the
Louvre and Notre Dame. I went to Versailles. I spent hours in
parading the Rue de Rivoli, in the neighborhood of Meurice's
corner, where foreigners pass and repass from morning till night.
At last I received an invitation to a reception at the English
Embassy. I went, and I found what I had sought so long.

There she was, sitting by an old lady in gray satin and diamonds,
who had a wrinkled but kindly face and keen gray eyes that seemed
to take in everything they saw, with very little inclination to
give much in return. But I did not notice the chaperon. I saw
only the face that had haunted me for months, and in the excitement
of the moment I walked quickly toward the pair, forgetting such a
trifle as the necessity for an introduction.

She was far more beautiful than I had thought, but I never doubted
that it was she herself and no other. Vision or no vision before,
this was the reality, and I knew it. Twice her hair had been