He put her in the hands of her maid, who was waiting for her in the corridor at the head of the staircase. Then he walked to the further end of the same corridor and stood at the window, looking out at the dissolving crowds below, hearing the “chaff” of the boys and the girls, and the cackling laughter of incipient but certainly not insipid love-making. The advances of the young men were no more deficient in warmth than was the retreat of the young women. The giggle and the shriek were, of course, the natural accompaniments of this playfulness. And the Meistersingers were giving their serenade in a self-respecting style. Mr. Tutt knew all about how that sort of thing should be done. He had spent close upon three months at Leipzig, studying music on its highest plane and becoming thoroughly familiar with the varying aspects of German sentimentality. Jack was waiting for the sound of Priscilla’s door and of her steps on the corridor. Half-an-hour had passed since she had gone upstairs, and she was not the girl to be making an elaborate toilet at this time. She should have been ready long ago. He returned half-way down the corridor, and entered his own dressing-room to change his coat and brush his hair. The bedroom was in silence. “Hallo!” he said, without opening the connecting door. “Hallo, Priscilla, what are you about that you haven’t come down yet?” He heard her voice say, “Jack, come to me--come,” but he scarcely knew the voice to be hers; it was the voice of a stranger. He opened the door and passed through. She was standing in the centre of the room, still in her travelling-dress--she had only taken off her hat. “I say, what’s the matter?” he began at the moment of entering. But then he stood still, as she turned her face to him. “Good God! Priscilla--dearest, what is the matter? You are as pale as death.” He thought that she was about to fall--she was swaying as a tall lily sways in a breath of air. He hurried to her and put his arm about her. “My God! You are ill. You have been doing too much. You have been overdoing it at that beastly election, and this is the reaction. Pull yourself together, darling.” She seemed trying to speak, but no word would come. She gasped. Her attempt to speak was choking her. At last she managed to make herself audible. Clutching at his shoulders rather wildly and with her face rigid, pushed forward close to his--with wild eyes and cheeks as pale as moonlight, she cried in gasps: “Jack--Jack--my own Jack--my husband--swear to me that you will stand by me--that you will never leave me whatever may happen.” “My darling! Calm yourself! Tell me what has happened.” “What? What? Only one thing--one thing! I saw his face in the crowd--close to the carriage. He was not drowned--he’s alive--he has returned.” “What do you mean?--he?--who? God above--not--not that man?”