It is strange how
intensely I desire to meet him. I suppose it is chiefly curiosity. I should
like to feel sure of him, to explain his silence. He cannot be dead. I am
told that he had pictures in this last Academy--and yet, never to have
written--never once, through all these years. I suppose there are few
friendships which can stand the test of correspondence. Still it is
inexplicable, it is not like Lorimer. He could not have harboured a grudge
against me--for what? A boyish infatuation for a woman who adored him, and
whom he adored. The idea is preposterous, they must have laughed over my
folly often, of winter evenings by their fireside. For they married, they
must have married, they were made for each other and they knew it. Was
their marriage happy I wonder? Was it as successful as mine, though perhaps
a little less commonplace? It is strange, though, that I never heard of it,
that he never wrote to me once, not through all those years.
_4th October._
Inexplicable! Inexplicable! _Did_ they marry after all? Could there have
been some gigantic misunderstanding? I paid a pilgrimage this morning which
hitherto I had deferred, I know not precisely why. I went to the old house
in the Rue d'Alva--where she lived, our Comtesse.
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