Lauraine seems now to have as great a horror of solitude as before she has had of gaiety. She is always out, always restless. No one they know of the fashionable world is at Baden, it being yet too early in the season. It is crowded with Germans and Austrians, and adventurers of all nationalities, who throng the pretty Kursaal under the shadow of the pine-crowned hills. Lauraine makes numerous acquaintances, and is always inventing projects of amusements, such as picnics, excursions, _jêtes_, drives, and balls. She goes to concerts and theatres, she is one of the loungers in the shady alleys of the Lichtenthal; she goes to supper-parties that to Lady Etwynde seem reckless and _risqué_, and meets all her friend's feeble remonstrances with the unanswerable argument that her husband does not mind, and therefore no one else need trouble their head about it. She seems so horribly, unaccountably changed that it fills Lady Etwynde's mind with dread and pain. Better the morbid grief, the dreary apathy of the past, than this feverish and unnatural gaiety, this craving for excitement and pleasure. Just as suddenly as she has gone to Baden, so suddenly does she tire of it. "She will go down the Rhine," she declares, "and stop anywhere that is pretty and picturesque." The change of programme delights her friend, and they leave their circle of new acquaintances desolate at their sudden departure. The lovely scenery and the constant change seem for a while to quiet Lauraine's restlessness. She takes a fancy to Bingen, and stays there for a month; but it distresses Lady Etwynde to see how pale and thin she is getting, how weary and sleepless her eyes always look. A letter comes one day from Sir Francis. He is coming to Baden for the races; he is going to run a horse for the Prix de Dames. They had better remain abroad and meet him there. He will arrange for rooms at the Bairischer Hof, or D'Angleterre, as a lot of people are coming at the same time. Meanwhile he hopes Lauraine is tired of moping, and intends to be reasonable again. She reads the letter quietly through, and then hands it to Lady Etwynde. "I can scarcely expect you to continue giving up your time to me as you have done," she says. "But this arrangement suits me very well. It is quiet and pleasant here, and I shall remain on till the time fixed for Baden. But you--there is your home, your own friends----" "Unless you are tired of me," interrupts Lady Etwynde, "I am not going to run away. I do not think you are either in health or spirits to be left alone." They are at the Victoria Hof. Their rooms are very pleasant; their life has been more like what it was at Erlsbach, spent chiefly in the open air, in drives and rambles and excursions on the river, and visits to the beautiful old Rochus Capelle, which, for Lauraine, has endless interest, and of which she never seems to tire.