east. In fact had he not been with me I
think that I should not have tried to leave home in time to catch the
steamer. The more I thought of catching the steamer, the less I cared to
do so; the more I thought of leaving home, the less I cared to do so. It
was not that I was going away from Sylvia that made me thus reluctant to
start. It was because I was going away without taking leave of
her,--without a word or even a sign from her. I ground my teeth as I
thought of how I had lost the only chance I had had of bidding her
farewell, and of assuring her that, no matter what happened, I would be
constant to her and to the principles in which we had both come to
believe. I had been too much excited on the morning I had left her in
the Frenchman's cottage to think that that would be my last chance of
seeing her; that thereafter Mother Anastasia would never cease to guard
her from my speech or sight. I should have rushed in, caring for
nothing. People might have talked, but Sylvia would have known that
prohibitions and separations would make no difference in my feeling for
her.

And now I was going away without a word or a sign, or even the slightest
trifle which I could cherish as a memento of her. There was a blankness
about it all which deadened my soul.

But Walkirk was inexorable. He made every arrangement, and even
superintended my farewell to my grandmother, and gently but firmly
interrupted me, as I repeated my entreaties that she would speedily find
out something about Sylvia, and write to me. At last we were in the
carriage, with time enough to reach the station, and Walkirk wiped his
brow, as would a man who had had a heavy load lifted from his mind.

We had not gone a quarter of the distance when the thought suddenly
struck me, Why should I go away without a memento of Sylvia? Why had I
not remembered my friend Vespa, the wasp, whose flight around my
secretary's room had made the first break in the restrictions which
surrounded her; had first shown me a Sylvia in place of a gray-bonneted
nun? That dead wasp, pinned to a card on the wall of my study, was the
only thing I possessed in which Sylvia had a share. I must go back and
get it; I must take it with me.

When I shouted to the coachman to turn, that I must go back to get
something I had forgotten, Walkirk was thrown into a fever of anxiety.
If we did not catch this train we would lose the steamer; the next train
would be three hours later. But his protesta