His absence had not been of long duration, but it sent him back with renewed zest to his painting, his books, and his music, and there was a strong need within him of a little rest and seclusion. He felt he must "think it out;" not in foreign scenes or amid distractions, but thus, amid his actual present surroundings, in the very place where he should have to "live it down." So it came to pass that he did not forthwith go in search of Paul, but contented himself with writing him a note and bidding him come to him--a summons which, to George's surprise, his friend neither responded to nor obeyed. His leave had not expired, and a few days of the solitude his soul loved were within his reach. Beyond his customary evening visit to Madame Vaughan--in whose appearance he noted a change which aroused in him apprehensions shared by her attendants and the resident doctor, but whose intelligence was even more than usually bright and sympathetic, though her delusion remained unchanged--George Wainwright went nowhere and saw no one for three days. At the end of that time his seclusion was interrupted by an unexpected visitor. It was his father. And his father had so manifestly something important to communicate, that George, whose sensitive temperament had one feminine tendency, that which renders a man readily apprehensive of ill news, started up and said: "There is something wrong! Miss Derinzy----" "Sit down, George, and keep quiet," said the Doctor kindly, regarding his son's impetuosity with a good-natured critical amusement. "There's nothing in the least wrong with Miss Derinzy; and though a rather surprising event has happened, it is not at all of an unpleasant nature--indeed, quite the reverse. You have made a conquest, a most valuable conquest, my dear boy." "Who is she?" said George, with a not very successful smile. "Have you come to propose to me on the part of a humpy heiress?" "Not in the least. There is no she in the case. You have made a conquest of old Hildebrand, and its extent and validity are tolerably clearly proved, I think, considering that he has gotten rid of an antipathy of long standing, surmounted a deeply-rooted prejudice. He has actually written to me--to me, the man who, in his capacity of doctor and savant, he holds in abhorrence, who, I am sure, he sincerely believes to be a quack and an impostor. He has written me a most friendly original letter, a curiosity of literature even in German; but he thought proper to air his English, and the production took me nearly an hour to read." Dr. Wainwright took a letter out of his pocket as he was speaking--a big square letter, a sheet of coarse-grained, thin, blue paper, sealed with a blotch of brown wax, and directed in a most crabbed and unmanageable hand, the address having been subsequently sprinkled, with unnecessary profusion, with glittering sticky sand. George glanced at the document with anxious eyes.