“Nonsense, Baron. What on earth would you do with Jane and Jumps? They’re going up to town with me by train. And my wife and Betti--oh, yes, by the way, my wife gave me instructions to tell you how very sorry she was not to be able to say good-bye to you. I assure you she was really greatly distressed, but she and Betti are motoring up to London and felt they ought to start as early as possible----” “But--motoring? You said they had gone to the sta----” “So they did. They saw Jellaby off, and then were picked up by a motor I ordered for them last night in the town, and went straight from there----” I heard no more. He went on speaking, but I heard no more. The series of surprises had done their work, and I could attend to nothing further. I believe he continued to express regret and offer advice, but what he said fell on my ear with the indifferent trickling of water when one is not thirsty. At first anger, keen resentment, and disappointment surged within me, for why, I asked myself, did she not say good-bye? I walked up and down on the hot stubble, my hands deep in my pockets and myself deep in conflicting emotions, while Menzies-Legh supposing I was listening regretted and advised, asking myself why she did not say good-bye. Then, gradually, I could not but see that here was tact, here was delicacy, the right feeling of the truly feminine woman, and began to admire her all the more because she had not said it. By degrees composure stole upon me. Reason returned to my assistance. I could think, arrange, decide. And before Edelgard came back with the two children, mere heated _débris_ of that which had lately been so complete, what I had decided with the clear-headed rapidity of the practical and sensible man was to give up the Elsa, lose my money, and go home. Home after all is the best place when life begins to wobble; and home in this case was very near the Eckthum property--I only had to borrow a vehicle, or even in extremity take a _droschke_, and there I was. There too the delightful lady must sooner or later be, and I would at least see her from time to time, whereas in England among her English relations she was entirely and hopelessly cut off. Thus it was, my friends, that I did not see Frau von Eckthum again. Thus it was our caravaning came to an untimely end. You can figure to yourselves what kind of reflections a man inclined to philosophize would reflect as the reduced party hastily packed, in the heat and glare of the summer morning, that which they had unpacked a week previously amid howling winds and hail showers in the yard at Panthers. Nature then had frowned, but vainly, on our merriment. Nature now was smiling, equally vainly on our fragments. One brief week; and what had happened? Rather, I should say, what had not happened?