‘The most dangerous word of all,’ said Colonel Goodwin, and begged us always to repeat after it the negative nein for an antidote.

‘You have both seen my father?’ I whispered to Miss Goodwin; ’both?  We have been separated.  Do tell me everything.  Don’t look at the stage-they speak such nonsense.  How did you remember me?  How happy I am to have met you!  Oh!  I haven’t forgotten the gondolas and the striped posts, and stali and the other word; but soon after we were separated, and I haven’t seen him since.’

She touched her father’s arm.

‘At once, if you like,’ said he, jumping up erect.

‘In Germany was it?’ I persisted.

She nodded gravely and leaned softly on my arm while we marched out of the theatre to her hotel—­I in such a state of happiness underlying bewilderment and strong expectation that I should have cried out loud had not pride in my partner restrained me.  At her tea-table I narrated the whole of my adventure backwards to the time of our parting in Venice, hurrying it over as quick as I could, with the breathless termination, ‘And now?’

They had an incomprehensible reluctance to perform their part of the implied compact.  Miss Goodwin looked at Captain Malet.  He took his leave.  Then she said, ’How glad I am you have dropped that odious name of Roy!  Papa and I have talked of you frequently—­latterly very often.  I meant to write to you, Harry Richmond.  I should have done it the moment we returned to England.’

‘You must know,’ said the colonel, ’that I am an amateur inspector of fortresses, and my poor Clara has to trudge the Continent with me to pick up the latest inventions in artillery and other matters, for which I get no thanks at head-quarters—­but it ’s one way of serving one’s country when the steel lies rusting.  We are now for home by way of Paris.  I hope that you and your friend will give us your company.  I will see this Captain Welsh of yours before we start.  Clara, you decided on dragging me to the theatre to-night with your usual admirable instinct.’

I reminded Miss Goodwin of my father being in Germany.

‘Yes, he is at one of the Courts, a long distance from here,’ she said, rapidly.  ’And you came by accident in a merchant-ship!  You are one of those who are marked for extraordinary adventures.  Confess:  you would have set eyes on me, and not known me.  It’s a miracle that I should meet my little friend Harry—­little no longer my friend all the same, are you not?’

I hoped so ardently.

She with great urgency added, ’Then come with us.  Prove that you put faith in our friendship.’

In desperation I exclaimed, ‘But I must, I must hear of my father.’

She turned to consult the colonel’s face.

‘Certainly,’ he said, and eulogized a loving son.  ’Clara will talk to you.  I’m for bed.  What was the name of the play we saw this evening?  Oh!  Struensee, to be sure.  We missed the scaffold.’