'Every man does so, once in his life at least, and generally oftener,' said the German; 'but I thought you were too wide awake for that now. With her sadness and her tears this girl is a profound bore to us, even if paid for! I wish you would take some means to cheer her--to please her--if you can.' 'Don't talk to me about the idiotic vagaries of a girl!' snapped Sir Redmond. 'I do not wish to do so, mem Herr; but what would you have me say?' replied Wyburg. 'Look here--it is all stuff and gammon about the Fraulein being your wife. I lived too long in England not to have my eyes opened.' 'Well?' 'You love her in your own fashion, I suppose?' 'And she?' 'Seems to hate you,' replied the German, with a grin. 'Perhaps she is not the first of her sex who has said no when she meant yes.' 'You don't mean to marry her, I suppose?' 'I have a wife, already,' replied Sleath. as he carefully manipulated and prepared a cigar. 'Der Teufel!' said Herr Wyburg, puffing out a cloud from his huge meerschaum, 'but such things will happen.' 'I have been engaged in many a lark and scrape, as you, Wyburg, know well enough, but never in one so peculiar as this. The girls who eloped with me before were always willing enough.' 'She may turn ill--downright ill--on our hands unless some change is brought about, and may have to be sent to the Krankenhaus; and then--what then?' Sleath had not thought of this contingency, so he became alarmed and asked to see Ellinor. On his entrance she rose at once and came towards him, her eyes dilated with hope or expectation and her lips parted, but without offering him a hand. 'You have news for me at last?' she said. 'News--about what--about whom?' 'Mrs. Deroubigne and Mary.' 'I have sent or gone daily to the post-office in the Post Strasse, but neither by telegraph nor inquiry can I discover their whereabouts in Brussels,' he replied, unblushingly: 'and even if we went there--' 'There! that is not to be thought of. I shall take the steamer for London,' exclaimed Ellinor, looking round her as if she would start that moment. 'No, you won't, my dear girl--yet a while, at least.' 'I shall go mad--mad if I am kept here prisoner for another day!' exclaimed Ellinor, wildly, as she wrung her hands and then pressed them on her temples, while Herr Wyburg looked with a kind of gloomy scorn from one to the other. He had many experiences in his career, but this was to him one somewhat new.