But he had small leisure to give to thoughts of this kind. The physician's report in the morning had not been encouraging, and his two travelling companions demanded all the sympathy and support he could give them. He went out with them in the afternoon to the Hôtel de la Terrasse at St. Germain. The Duke, a nervous hypochondriac, could not sleep in the noise of Paris, and was accustomed to a certain apartment in this well-known hotel, which was often reserved for him. Jacob left them about six o'clock to return to Paris. He was to meet one of the Embassy attachés--an old Oxford friend--at the Café Gaillard for dinner. He dressed at the "Rhin," put on an overcoat, and set out to walk to the Rue Gaillard about half-past seven. As he approached the "Mirabeau," he saw a cab with luggage standing at the door. A man came out with the hotel _concierge_. To his astonishment, Delafield recognized Warkworth.
The young officer seemed in a hurry and out of temper. At any rate, he jumped into the cab without taking any notice of the two _sommeliers_ and the _concierge_ who stood round expectant of francs, and when the _concierge_ in his stiffest manner asked where the man was to drive, Warkworth put his head out of the window and said, hastily, to the _cocher_:
"D'abord, à la Gare de Sceaux! Puis, je vous dirai. Mais dépêchez-vous!"
The cab rolled away, and Delafield walked on.
Half-past seven, striking from all the Paris towers! And Warkworth's intention in the morning was to leave the Gare de Lyon at 7.15. But it seemed he was now bound, at 7.30, for the Gare de Sceaux, from which point of departure it was clear that no reasonable man would think of starting for the Eternal City.
Then he was not catching a train?--at any rate, immediately. He had some other business first, and was perhaps going to the station to deposit his luggage?
Suddenly a thought, a suspicion, flashed through Delafield's mind, which set his heart thumping in his breast. In after days he was often puzzled to account for its origin, still more for the extraordinary force with which it at once took possession of all his energies. In his more mystical moments of later life he rose to the secret belief that God had spoken to him.