With my valise over my shoulder I returned to the hall to take leave of my hostess.  Now she seemed somewhat contrite.  Fate and she had conquered, I was going away, and she was sorry for me.

“I think it is wonderfully good of you to do all this,” she said.  “I wish I could do something for you.”

I would have been glad to suggest that she might ask me to come again, and it would also have pleased me to say that I did not believe that her husband, if he could express his opinion, would commend her apparent inhospitality to his successor.  But I made no such remarks, and offered my hand, which she cordially clasped as if I were an old friend and were going away to settle in the Himalayas.

I went into the yard to get Orso.  He was lying down when I approached him, but I think he knew from my general appearance that I was prepared to take the road, and he rose to his feet as much as to say, “I am ready.”  I unfastened the chain from the post, and, with the best of wishes for good-luck from John, who now seemed to be very well satisfied with me, I walked around the side of the house, the bear following as submissively as if he had been used to my leadership all his life.

I did not see the boy nor the lemon-faced woman, and I was glad of it.  I believe they would have cast evil eyes upon me, and there is no knowing what that bear might have done in consequence.

Mrs. Chester was standing in the door as I reached the road.  “Good-bye!” she cried, “and good fortune go with you!” I raised my hat, and gave Orso a little jerk with the chain.

CHAPTER IX

A RUNAWAY

He was a very slow walker, that bear.  If I had been alone I would have been out of sight of the inn in less than five minutes.  As it was, I looked back after a considerable time to see if I really were out of sight of the house, and I found I was not.  She was still standing in the doorway, and when I turned she waved her handkerchief.  Now that I had truly left and was gone, she seemed to be willing to let me know better than before what a charming woman she was.  I took off my hat again and pressed forward.

For a couple of miles, perhaps, I walked thoughtfully, and I do not believe I once thought of the bear shambling silently behind me.  I had been dreaming a day-dream—­not building a castle in the air, for I had seen before me a castle already built.  I had simply been dreaming myself into it, into its life, into its possessions, into the possession of everything which belonged to it.

It had been a fascinating vision.  It had suited my fancy better than any vision of the future which I had ever had.  I was not ambitious; I loved the loveliness of life.  I was a student, and I had a dream of life which would not interfere with the society of my books.  I loved all rural pleasures, and I had dreamed of a life where these were spread out ready for my enjoyment.  I was a man formed to love, and there had come to me dreams of this sort of thing.