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191 STRAIT IS THE GATE

was gone; she writes to me so seldom that if it had not been for him I should have known nothing of her flight, for I should have been a long time before taking alarm at her silence. I blamed Robert severely for having let her go in this way, and for not having gone with her to Paris. Will you believe that from that moment we were ignorant of her address? You can imagine my sickening anxiety; impossible to see her, impossible even to write to her. Robert, it is true, went to Paris a few days later, but he was unable to discover anything. He is so slack that we could not trust to his taking the proper steps. We had to tell the police; it was not possible to remain in such cruel uncertainty. Edouard then went himself, and at last managed to discover the little nursing home where Alissa had taken refuge . Alas! too late. I received a letter from the head of the home announcing her death, and, at the same time, a telegram from Edouard, who was not in time to see her again. On the last day she had written our address on an envelope, so that we might be told, and in another envelope she had put the copy of a letter she had sent our lawyer at Le Havre containing her last instructions. I think there is a passage in this letter which concerns you: I will let you know soon. Edouard

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