.

.

I, too, will go tomorrow if I can." Why remain longer in Paris?
His family was away.

His father, according to Argensola's investigations, also had gone off without saying whither.
Now Marguerite's mysterious flight was leaving him entirely alone, in a solitude that was filling him with remorse.
That afternoon, when strolling through the boulevards, he had stumbled across a friend considerably older than himself, an acquaintance in the fencing club which he used to frequent.

This was the first time they had met since the beginning of the war, and they ran over the list of their companions in the army.