Two days afterwards, a letter from M. Auguste came to our chambers, so empty and forlorn without Louise. They were in Paris. They had had a dreadful crossing,--he hardly thought Louise would arrive at Boulogne alive. She was better, but must rest a day or two before starting for the _Midi_. She begged us to see that Mussy ate his meals _bien régulièrement_, and that he "made the dead" from time to time, as she had taught him; and, would we write? The address was Mr. Auguste, Horse-Dealer, Hotel du Cheval Blanc, Rue Chat-qui-pèche-â-la-ligne, Paris.
Horse-dealer! Louise might be at death's door, but M. Auguste had his position to maintain. Then, after ten long days, came a post-card, also from Paris: Louise was in Marseilles, he was on the point of going, once there he would write. Then--nothing. Had he gone? Could he go?
If I were writing a romance it would, with dramatic fitness, end here. But if I keep to facts, I must add that, in about eight months, Louise and M. Auguste reappeared; that both were in the best of health and spirits, M. Auguste a mass of jewelry; that all the sunshine of Provence seemed let loose in the warmth of their greeting; that horse-dealing for the moment prospered too splendidly for Louise to want to return to us,--or was this a new invention, I have always wondered, because she found in her place another Frenchwoman who wept at the prospect of being dismissed to make room for her?
Well, anyway, for a while, things, according to Louise, continued to prosper. She would pay me friendly visits and ask for sewing,--her afternoons were so long,--and tell me of M. Auguste's success, and of Provence, though there were the old reticences. By degrees, a shadow fell over the gaiety. I fancied that "the comedy" was being played faster than ever in the Soho lodgings. And, of a sudden, the fabric of prosperity collapsed like a house of cards. She was ill again, and again an operation was necessary. There was not a penny in her pockets nor in M. Auguste's. What happened? Louise had only to smile, and we were her slaves. But this time, for us at least, the end had really come. We heard nothing more from either of them. No letters reached us from Paris, no post-cards. Did she use the money to go back to Marseilles? Did she ever leave London? Did M. Auguste's fate overtake him when they crossed the Channel? Were the Soho lodgings the scene of some tremendous _crime passionel_? For weeks I searched the police reports in my morning paper. But neither then nor to this day have I had a trace of the woman who, for over a year, gave to life in our chambers the comfort and the charm of her presence. She vanished.