No! No! Certainly not! He will not break open the lock; what the devil, he isn’t a thief!… But if he only knew what was in it. His arm is aching and he is perspiring with the heat. He stops for a moment and puts his burden down on the pavement. Of course he has every intention of returning the wretched thing to its owner; but he would like to question it first. He presses the lock at a venture.… Oh miracle! The two shells open and disclose a pearl—a pocket-book, which in its turn discloses a bundle of bank-notes. Bernard seizes the pearl and shuts up the oyster.

And now that he has the wherewithal—quick! a hotel. He knows of one close by in the Rue d’Amsterdam. He is dying of hunger. But before sitting down to table, he must put his suit-case in safety. A waiter carries it upstairs before him; three flights; a passage; a door which he locks upon his treasure. He goes down again.

Sitting at table in front of a beefsteak, Bernard did not dare examine the pocket-book. (One never knows who may be watching you.) But his left hand amorously caressed it, lying snug in his inside pocket.

“How to make Edouard understand that I’m not a thief—that’s the trouble. What kind of fellow is Edouard? Perhaps the suit-case may shed a little light upon that. Attractive—so much is certain. But there are heaps of attractive fellows who have no taste for practical joking. If he thinks his suit-case has been stolen, no doubt he’ll be glad to see it again. If he’s the least decent he’ll be grateful to me for bringing it back to him. I shall easily rouse his interest. Let’s eat the sweet quickly and then go upstairs and examine the situation. Now for the bill and a soul-stirring tip for the waiter.”

A minute or two later he was back again in his room.

“Now, suit-case, a word with you!… A morning suit, not more than a trifle too big for me, I expect. The material becoming and in good taste. Linen; toilet things. I’m not very sure that I shall give any of all this back. But what proves that I’m not a thief is that these papers interest me a great deal more than anything else. We’ll begin by reading this.”

This was the note-book into which Edouard had slipped Laura’s menancholy letter. We have already seen the first pages; this is what followed.

XI : Edouard’s Journal: George Molinier

Nov. 1st.—A fortnight ago …

—it was a mistake not to have noted it down at once. It was not so much that I hadn’t time as that my heart was still full of Laura—or, to be more accurate, I did not wish to distract my thoughts from her; moreover, I do not care to note anything here that is casual or fortuitous, and at that time I did not think that what I am going to relate could lead to anything, or be, as people say, of any consequence; at any rate, I would not admit it to myself and it was, in a way, to prove the unimportance of this incident that I refrained from mentioning it in my journal. But I feel more and more—it would be vain to deny it—that it is Olivier’s figure that has now become the magnet of my thoughts, that their current sets towards him and that without taking him into account I shall be able neither to explain nor to understand myself properly.

I was coming back that morning from Perrin’s, the publisher’s, where I had been seeing about the press copies of the fresh edition of my old book. As the weather was fine, I was dawdling back along the quays until it should be time for lunch.

A little before getting to Vanier’s, I stopped in front of a second-hand bookseller’s.