My Darling: For the last two hours I have been in purgatory. What must you think of me? I would come to you at once if I could, but it is impossible. Tomorrow morning, though, I must see you. At the end of the Tuileries gardens, near the Place de la Concorde, there is, you may remember, a grove of trees. Arrange to be there with your maid at eleven o’clock. There will be few there at that hour.
This he despatched to the Ritz by messenger.
“Fancy Captain Lindenwald going off!” cried Minna, as, promptly at twenty minutes past seven, she joined Grey in the drawing-room. “Where has he gone, do you suppose? And Lutz, too, and even Johann.”
“They’ve gone to the seaside over Sunday,” was Grey’s jesting reply. “Paris was getting too warm for them.”
“But,” she protested, at fault, “I understood we were all to start for Kürschdorf tomorrow night.”
“Were we? Who said so?”
“Captain Lindenwald, last evening.”
“Well, Captain Lindenwald has changed his plans.”
“It is certainly very mysterious,” she concluded, perplexedly. “I couldn’t believe it when the chambermaid told me.” And the great solemn eyes were graver than usual.
When, after dinner, they returned to the hotel, Grey’s glance detected a telegram in the rack addressed to the decamping Captain and he made haste to appropriate it. A little later, in his room, he handed it to O’Hara.