hat 's the point. I 'll give you my word, and I
'll keep it. I won't go near that girl again--I won't think of her till
I 've got rid of your fifty pounds. It 's a dreadful encouragement to
extravagance, but that 's your lookout. I 'll stop for their beastly
races and the young lady shall be sacred."

Longueville called the next morning at Mrs. Vivian's, and learned that
the three ladies had left Baden by the early train, a couple of hours
before. This fact produced in his mind a variety of emotions--surprise,
annoyance, embarrassment. In spite of his effort to think it natural
they should go, he found something precipitate and inexplicable in the
manner of their going, and he declared to himself that one of the party,
at least, had been unkind and ungracious in not giving him a chance
to say good-bye. He took refuge by anticipation, as it were, in this
reflection, whenever, for the next three or four days, he foresaw
himself stopping short, as he had done before, and asking himself
whether he had done an injury to Angela Vivian. This was an idle and
unpractical question, inasmuch as the answer was not forthcoming;
whereas it was quite simple and conclusive to say, without the note
of interrogation, that she was, in spite of many attractive points,
an abrupt and capricious young woman. During the three or four days in
question, Bernard lingered on at Baden, uncertain what to do or where
to go, feeling as if he had received a sudden check--a sort of spiritual
snub--which arrested the accumulation of motive. Lovelock, also, whom
Bernard saw every day, appeared to think that destiny had given him
a slap in the face, for he had not enjoyed the satisfaction of a last
interview with Miss Evers.

"I thought she might have written me a note," said the Captain; "but it
appears she does n't write. Some girls don't write, you know."

Bernard remarked that it was possible Lovelock would still have news of
Miss Blanche; and before he left Baden he learned that she had addressed
her forsaken swain a charming little note from Lausanne, where the three
ladies had paused in their flight from Baden, and where Mrs. Vivian had
decreed that for the present they should remain.

"I 'm devilish glad she writes," said Captain Lovelock; "some girls do
write, you know."

Blanche found Lausanne most horrid after Baden, for whose delights she
languished. The delights of Baden, however, were not obvious just now to
her correspondent, who had ta