Erik did not go out walking on Sunday. Truthfully, he was not entirely aware that Sunday had come and gone until he saw a newspaper dated Tuesday the third. The third? Was it really February already?

He was vigilant in keeping track of the next week and on Sunday the eighth, he left the underground house for his walk. Odd, that even the shadows seemed to reach out and attack him today. He could not recall feeling so ill at ease since…

…since walking with Nora, that morning after Lakmé. Oh, how well he remembered the paranoia, the fear that had plagued him that day! How sure he was that everyone saw him and wished him ill!

But Nora had laughed at that. They're wondering why I'm still in an evening gown, she had said with that hint of mischief in her smile. It's quite scandalous.

He had thought her a fool at the first. There he was, walking in the broad daylight, with a woman no less! Who wouldn't stare?

As it turned out, walking arm-in-arm with a woman made one quite… inconspicuous. With Nora at his side, he was just one of a hundred men escorting a lady about. Nora was always so at ease, never doubting that she had the right to walk wherever she pleased. Who would dare question her choice of companion, no matter how strange? Some of that bravado must have attached itself to Erik, for he had walked around Paris for weeks with nothing more than a cursory thought given to discretion.

It appeared that Nora had stolen that confidence away, along with his heart. How dreadfully unfair of her.

Erik did not know what to expect, as he strolled the breadth of the Île de la Cité. Early Mass would soon end, and once again he would cross paths with Nora. What would she say? Would it be good morning Erik or Monsieur? As along as she did not shun him utterly, he would survive.

The cathedral bells tolled, the faithful departed… and Nora did not come. Erik stood on the bridge until dawn had turned to full day light. He calmed himself. She had attended latter Masses before—perhaps today as well.

I'm going home, she had said. So soon? So quickly?

Erik crossed over the bridge, quite alone, and made his way to the Rue de la Harpe. He thought of entering the building he thought of as Nora's, but could not. Instead, he waited across the street, concealed as best as he could be.

One of her fellow tenants, a wealthy young student dressed for church, exited about ten. The landlady came out to gossip with some passer-by around noon.

At that, at nearly three o'clock, Cousin Daniel alighted from a cab and made to enter the building. Erik was at his side in a moment.

"Monsieur Tremblay."

The smaller man jumped and spun around, "Christ!" the surge of panic faded from his face when he saw Erik. How funnily unfamiliar. "Oh. Ah, Erik. Monsieur Erik."

"Erik is sufficient."

"Right," his composure had returned fully. "Erik. How may I be of service, Erik?"

That was… a very good question. Erik had discovered that a lifetime of making ominous, detached threats left him ill-equipped for casual conversation. After some time he asked, "how is she?"

Daniel's face fell slightly. "Nora is Nora is Nora."

"Pardon?"

"Nora is as she has always been and will likely continue to always be," Daniel said, "I fancy she's already in Ottawa, or at the very least New York."

"Then she is gone," Erik sighed. I've been leaving since the day I arrived. Had she ever really been here? Had she ever really been with Erik?

"It's her prerogative," Daniel said. He sighed, and suddenly his silver hair and thick glasses did not look so wholly out of place over his youthful face. "Don't mistake me—" How often Nora had used those very words! What an amazing concept true family was, that they even spoke alike!—"I love my cousin as if she were my sister. She might as well be, really. But I often think that she would have been happier if she did not have the option of doing what she pleased."

Erik suspected that Nora would strongly disagree with that statement, no matter the amiable air that it was made in.

"She has that holy triad," Daniel continued, "Money, intelligence, and a sort of ambition. She would have made a fine man, I suppose, but to have all that as a woman? She does not know what is best for her."

"Do you?" Erik asked. "I do not." He knew what he wished it to be, though.

Daniel shrugged. "No. No, I suppose I do not. All I know is that Nora was happy here for awhile, and I have seldom seen her happy. I don't suppose she gave you any means of contacting her."

Erik reached into the pocket of his vest and pulled out the card Nora had handed him. It was such a simple thing. Blinding white cardstock engraved with what was probably her family's coat of arms. A few words were penned in elegant black script.

Miss Nora Farley - Farley House - Ottawa

Would a letter really reach such a simple address? Erik did not dare find out.

Daniel looked at it for a moment. "She did, by God! You must have gotten to her, my friend. Usually when she leaves a place, she leaves it without a trace of her ever having been there."

"She has left many traces here," Erik murmured, and pocketed the card.

"Yes, another thing she never manages to think of—everything she leaves behind unintentionally," Daniel produced his own card, "I'm taking up rooms provided by the British Embassy—that is the address. You are welcome to contact me."

"Thank you." What else was one supposed to say?

Daniel turned to leave, but then stopped and looked at Erik again. "Please don't give up on her. She's already given up on herself."

Nora always liked the return trip to Canada. The new steamers could make the Atlantic crossing in just ten days, but this was still enough time to readjust and leave behind the events of wherever Nora she had last been.

She honestly and strongly believed that this visit to France would be no different than any other. The embarkation process was smooth, and she was sure that the last few months would fade into the sea fog.

There had been other little romances on her travels, after all. There had been other friendships, other opera houses, and other Sunday walks. From London to Lisbon, she had left them all with little more than a sigh and a wink.

She tried to cut as many ties to France as possible as she could. She had persuaded Daniel to sell all that could be sold—the estate in Beaune included—and then divvy up the resultant monies. Nothing would remain to oblige her to ever return. Upon boarding the steamer, she ceased to even speak the language. Even Perrine begrudgingly returned to conversing in English.

A wonderful giddy feeling stole over her as the ship moved ever further away from France. The seas were rough, but the future was hers for the taking. The lightness in her heart made her gregarious and friendly. The feeling lasted until their fifth day at sea. It was on that day that the rocking of the ship ceased to be comforting, she no longer found her her fellow passengers amusing, and somehow she could not bring herself to leave her bed.

She spent a good deal of her time abed decidedly not thinking of Erik. The damp, dark quality of her cabin did not remind her of the house on the lake. The distant sound of one of the marginally musically inclined quests slurring through La Habanera did not bring to mind that Erik liked the song 'in spite of itself.' Why would anything remind her of him? Erik and all he stood for was back in France, and what business did Nora have with France?

By the seventh day, Perrine asked if Nora wanted to see the ship's doctor. On the eighth, she brought him in regardless of Nora's protests. He asked inane questions and Nora gave inane answers. At the end, he deduced that the bad air of the enclosed cabin was to blame for all of Nora's ills and recommended that she spend time on deck.

Nora tried to oblige, but the hounding concern of her fellow passengers was enough to make her think that a trip over the railing sounded delightful.

By the time they docked in New York, she had managed to return to a tolerably good humor. She chose to think of the malaise of the last few days as a fit of seasickness, and chose not to dwell on the fact that she had never been seasick once before in her life.

They stayed in New York for some days, waiting for the weather to improve. Nora took the opportunity to send Daniel a telegram. She did not add an inquiry about Erik and Daniel's reply did not mention him.

On the twentieth of February, Nora once again stood in the foyer of Farley House. She had lived in there for most of her life, though it bore few similarities to the house of her childhood. As soon as her mother died, Nora had changed most everything about it. Beyond technical upgrades, she had switched the family bedrooms from the west to the east wing. Her old childhood nursery was now a guest suite; her mother's parlor and boudoir emptied and closed. The only room that remained mostly unchanged was her father's old library. After all, the bookshelves were built directly onto the walls. Why bother constructing new ones and moving some thousands of books?

Nora had claimed that the renovations had been to bring the house into current fashion, but she knew—and she suspected that most people knew—that she simply did not want to be reminded of the past.

You run away, even from old furniture.

Since when had her thoughts taken on Erik's voice? It wasn't even his normal, beautiful voice. It was that mad, singsong tone that so tormented her.

Nora went to her room to change out of her soiled travel suit, and did not think about Erik much at all.

Just a little update- more to come soon.