"No, of course not. My interview with her will not be an affair of twenty minutes. I shall see her early to-morrow morning, and make it all right. And now, my dear boy, I am going to set you down. I have given as much time to the _affaire_ Derinzy as I can spare at present. I shall write to Hildebrand to-night, and you had better write to him too, in your best German and most sentimental style. Goodbye for the present." Dr. Wainwright pulled the check-string, the carriage stopped, and George was deposited at a street-corner. His father was immersed in a pamphlet before he was out of sight. George saw Annette once, by special permission of Dr. Wainwright, during the three days which sufficed for her preparations. He had been strictly enjoined to avoid all agitating topics of conversation, and was not supposed by Annette to be acquainted with the facts of the case, or the nature of the interview which had taken place as arranged by Dr. Wainwright. While studiously obeying his father's injunctions, George watched Annette narrowly as he cautiously spoke of the Doctor, towards whom she had never displayed the smallest liking or confidence, and he perceived that the disclosures which had been made to her had already produced a salutary effect. There was less versatility in her manner, and more cheerfulness, and she spoke voluntarily and with grateful appreciation, although vaguely, of Dr. Wainwright. She alluded freely to her projected journey; and it was rather hard for George to conceal that he had some previous knowledge on the subject. Her manner, modest and artless as it was, could not fail to be interpreted favourably to himself by the least vain of men; and when the moment of parting came, it needed his strong sense of the all-importance of discretion to enable him to restrain his emotion, to conceal his consciousness of the impending crisis. When the interview was over, and George had taken leave of Annette, when he went away with the memory of a sweet, tranquil, _sane_ smile, as the last look on her face, he was glad. No mention had been made by Mrs. Derinzy of her son, by Annette of her cousin, and George had been so absorbed in the interest of this strange and exciting turn of affairs, that he had not thought of his friend. But when he had, from a point of view whence he was not visible, watched the departure of Miss Derinzy, Mrs. Stothard, and Annette's maid, under the charge and escort of the trustworthy and carefully-instructed Collis, as he turned slowly away from the railway-station when the tidal-train had rushed out of sight, he said to himself: "Now I must go and look after Paul." CHAPTER XXX. DAISY'S RECANTATION.