There was the bitterness of death in what, by a mere trick of chance, came about. As she turned a corner telling herself for the hundredth time that she must go home, she found herself face to face with a splendid figure swinging furiously along. She staggered at the sight of the tigerish rage in the white face she recognized with a gasp. It was enough merely to behold it. He had met with some disastrous humiliation! As for him, the direct intervention of that Heaven whose special care he was, had sent him a woman to punish—which, so far, was at least one thing arranged as it should be. He knew so well how he could punish her with his mere contempt and displeasure—as he could lash a spaniel crawling at his feet. He need not deign to tell her what had happened, and he did not. He merely drew back and stood in stiff magnificence looking down at her. “It is through some folly of yours,” he dropped in a voice of vitriol. “Women are always foolish. They cannot hold their tongues or think clearly. Return to Berlin at once. You are not of those whose conduct I can commend to be trusted in the future.” He was gone before she could have spoken even if she had dared. Sobbing gasps caught her breath as she stood and watched him striding pitilessly and superbly away with, what seemed to her abject soul, the swing and tread of a martial god. Her streaming tears tasted salt indeed. She might never see him again—even from a distance. She would be disgraced and flung aside as a blundering woman. She had obeyed his every word and done her straining best, as she had licked the dust at his feet—but he would never cast a glance at her in the future or utter to her the remotest word of his high commands. She so reeled as she went her wretched way that a good-natured policeman said to her as he passed, “Steady on, my girl. Best get home and go to bed.” To Mrs. Gareth-Lawless, it was stated by Coombe that Fräulein Hirsch had been called back to Germany by family complications. That august orders should recall Count Von Hillern, was easily understood. Such magnificent persons never shone upon society for any length of time. That Feather had been making a country home visit when her daughter had faced tragedy was considered by Lord Coombe as a fortunate thing. “We will not alarm Mrs. Gareth-Lawless by telling her what has occurred,” he said to Mademoiselle Vallé. “What we most desire is that no one shall suspect that the hideous thing took place. A person who was forgetful or careless might, unintentionally, let some word escape which—”