He saw Diogenes still standing there, waving his hat in farewell: for a few moments longer his splendid figure stood out clearly against the flat grey landscape beyond, then slowly the veil of mist began to envelop him, at first only blurring the outline of his mantle or his sash, then it grew more dense and the sledge moved away more rapidly. The next moment the Laughing Cavalier had disappeared from view. CHAPTER XLIII LEYDEN ONCE MORE After that Gilda had lived as in a dream: only vaguely conscious that good horses and a smoothly gliding vehicle were conveying her back to her home. Of this fact she was sure, Nicolaes was sitting quite close under the hood of the sledge and when first she became fully aware of the reality of his presence, he had raised her hand to his lips and had said in response to a mute appeal from her eyes: "We are going home." After that a quiet sense of utter weariness pervaded her being, and she fell into a troubled sleep. She did not heed what went on around her, she only knew that once or twice during the day there was a halt for food and drink. The nearness of her brother, his gentleness toward her, gave her a sense of well-being, even though her heart felt heavy with a great sorrow which made the whole future appear before her like an interminable vista of blank and grey dullness. It was at her suggestion that arrangements were made for an all-night halt at Leyden, which city they reached in the early part of the afternoon. She begged Nicolaes that they might put up at the hostelry of the "White Goat" on the further side of the town, and that from thence a messenger might be sent to her father, asking him to come and meet her there on the morrow. Though Nicolaes was not a little astonished at this suggestion of Gilda's--seeing that surely she must be longing to be home again and that Haarlem could easily have been reached before night--he did not wish to run counter to her will. True enough, he dreaded the meeting with his father, but he knew that it had to come, and felt that, whatever might be the future consequences of it all--he could not possibly bear alone the burden of remorse and of shame which assailed him every time he encountered Gilda's tear-stained eyes, and saw how wearied and listless she looked. So he called a halt at the "White Goat" and as soon as he saw his sister safely installed, with everything ordered for her comfort, and a tasteful supper prepared, he sent a messenger on horseback at once to Haarlem to his father. Gilda had deliberately chosen to spend the night at the hostelry of the "White Goat" because she felt that in that quaint old building with its wide oak staircase--over which she had been carried five days ago, dizzy and half fainting--the blackened rafters would mayhap still echo with the sound of a merry laughter which she would never hear again.