My impulse was to ring the bell angrily, but it died away on my recollecting that there was no bell. The rain, I could see, had now lightened and thinned into a drizzle, and I could hear cheerful talk going on between some persons evidently walking just outside. One voice seemed to be Jellaby’s, but how could it be he who was cheerful after the night he must have had? And the other was a woman’s--no doubt, I thought bitterly, Edelgard’s, who, warmed herself and invigorated by a proper morning meal, cared nothing that her husband should be lying there within a stone’s throw like a cold, neglected tomb. Presently, instead of the hedge, the walls and gates of gardens passed the window, and then came houses, singly at first, but soon joining on to each other in an uninterrupted string, and raising myself on my elbow and putting two and two together, I decided that this must be Wadhurst. It was. To my surprise about the middle of the village the caravan stopped, and raising myself once more on my elbow I was forced immediately to sink back again, for I encountered a row of eager faces pressed against the pane with eyes rudely staring at the contents of the caravan, which, of course, included myself as soon as I came into view from between the curtains of the berth. This was very disagreeable. Again I instinctively and frantically sought the bell that was not there. How long was I to be left thus in the street of a village with my window-curtains unclosed and the entire population looking in? I could not get out and close them myself, for I am staunch to the night attire, abruptly terminating, that is still, thank heaven, characteristic during the hours of darkness of every honest German gentleman: in other words, I do not dress myself, as the English do, in a coat and trousers in order to go to bed. But on this occasion I wished that I did, for then I could have leaped out of my berth and drawn the curtains in an instant myself, and the German attire allows no margin for the leaping out of berths. As it was, all I could do was to lie there holding the berth-curtains carefully together until such time as it should please my dear wife to honour me with a visit. This she did after, I should say, at least half an hour had passed, with the completely composed face of one who has no reproaches to make herself, and a cup of weak tea in one hand and a small slice of dry toast on a plate in the other, though she knows I never touch tea and that it is absurd to offer a large-framed, fine man one piece of toast with no butter on it for his breakfast. “What are we stopping for?” I at once asked on her appearing. “For breakfast,” said she. “What?” “We are having it in the inn to-day because of the wet. It is so nice, Otto. Table-napkins and everything. And flowers in the middle. And nothing to wash up afterward. What a pity you can’t be there! Are you better?”