“What do you think she was crying about?”

“Well, I have supposed that ladies occasionally shed tears of pity.  If she accepted him conditionally she would have to tell her father about it.”  Mrs. March gave him a glance of silent contempt, and he hastened to atone for his stupidity.  “Perhaps she’s told him on the instalment plan.  She may have begun by confessing that Burnamy had been in Carlsbad.  Poor old fellow, I wish we were going to find him in Ansbach!  He could make things very smooth for us.”

“Well, you needn’t flatter yourself that you’ll find him in Ansbach.  I’m sure I don’t know where he is.”

“You might write to Miss Triscoe and ask.”

“I think I shall wait for Miss Triscoe to write to me,” she said, with dignity.

“Yes, she certainly owes you that much, after all your suffering for her.  I’ve asked the banker in Nuremberg to forward our letters to the poste restante in Ansbach.  Isn’t it good to see the crows again, after those ravens around Carlsbad?”

She joined him in looking at the mild autumnal landscape through the open window.  The afternoon was fair and warm, and in the level fields bodies of soldiers were at work with picks and spades, getting the ground ready for the military manoeuvres; they disturbed among the stubble foraging parties of crows, which rose from time to time with cries of indignant protest.  She said, with a smile for the crows, “Yes.  And I’m thankful that I’ve got nothing on my conscience, whatever happens,” she added in dismissal of the subject of Burnamy.

“I’m thankful too, my dear.  I’d much rather have things on my own.  I’m more used to that, and I believe I feel less remorse than when you’re to blame.”

They might have been carried near this point by those telepathic influences which have as yet been so imperfectly studied.  It was only that morning, after the lapse of a week since Burnamy’s furtive reappearance in Carlsbad, that Miss Triscoe spoke to her father about it, and she had at that moment a longing for support and counsel that might well have made its mystical appeal to Mrs. March.

She spoke at last because she could put it off no longer, rather than because the right time had come.  She began as they sat at breakfast.  “Papa, there is something that I have got to tell you.  It is something that you ought to know; but I have put off telling you because—­”

She hesitated for the reason, and “Well!” said her father, looking up at her from his second cup of coffee.  “What is it?”

Then she answered, “Mr. Burnamy has been here.”

“In Carlsbad?  When was he here?”

“The night of the Emperor’s birthday.  He came into the box when you were behind the scenes with Mr. March; afterwards I met him in the crowd.”

“Well?”

“I thought you ought to know.  Mrs. March said I ought to tell you.”

“Did she say you ought to wait a week?” He gave way to an irascibility which he tried to check, and to ask with indifference, “Why did he come back?”