Two minutes to eleven found Browne standing upon the platform at Charing Cross Station. It was not until he was comfortably installed in the carriage and the train was rolling out of the station, that the full meaning of what he was doing struck him. Why was he leaving England? To follow this girl. And why? For one very good reason--_because he loved her_! But why _should_ he have loved her, when, with his wealth, he could have married the daughter of almost any peer in England; when, had he so desired, he could have chosen his wife from among the most beautiful or most talented women in Europe? Katherine Petrovitch, attractive and charming as she was, was neither as beautiful, rich, or clever as a hundred women he had met. And yet she was the one in the world he desired for his wife.
So concerned was he about her that, when they reached Dover, his first thought was to examine the sea in order to convince himself that she had had a good crossing. He boarded the steamer, the lines were cast off, and presently the vessel's head was pointing for the Continent. Little by little the English coast dropped behind them and the shores of France loomed larger. Never before had the coast struck him as being so beautiful. He entered the train at Calais with a fresh satisfaction as he remembered that every revolution of the wheels was bringing him closer to the woman he loved. The lights were lit in the cafés and upon the boulevards, when he reached Paris, and as he drove through the crowded streets in the direction of the hotel he usually affected the city seemed all glitter, gaiety, and life.
Familiar as he was with the city, it seemed altogether different to him to-night. The loungers in the courtyard of the hotel, the bustling waiters, the very chambermaids, served to remind him that, while in the flesh he was still the same John Grantham Browne, in the spirit he was an altogether separate and distinct individual from the man they had previously known. On reaching his own room he opened the window, leant out, and looked upon Paris by night. The voice of the great city spoke to him, and greeted him as with the sweetest music. Once more he was sharing the same city with Katherine Petrovitch, breathing the same air, and hearing the same language.