"At once, or within the week."
"And where?"
"I don't know. Through Germany--to Vienna, I imagine. Vienna is a great stronghold of the savans of our profession; and I should give out that I was bound thither on a professional mission."
"I feel as though there is nothing I would not give to dissuade you from carrying out what only half an hour since my heart was so earnestly set upon. But is it absolutely necessary that you should thus exile yourself? Could you not--"
"I can take no half measures," said Wilmot decisively. "I go, or I stay; and we have both decided what I had better do."
Five minutes more and Ronald was gone, after a short and earnest speech of gratitude and thanks to Wilmot, in which he had said that it would be impossible ever to forget his manly chivalry, and that he hoped they would soon meet under happier auspices. He wrung Wilmot's hand at parting, and left, sensibly affected.
Wilmot's servant heard the hall-door shut behind the departing visitor, and wondered he had not been rung for. Five minutes more elapsed, ten minutes, and then the man, thinking that his master had overlooked the fact that the carriage was waiting for him, went up to the room to make the announcement. When he entered the room, he found his master with his head upon the table in front of him clasped in his hands. He looked up at the sound of the man's voice and murmured something unintelligible, seized his hat and gloves from the hall-table, and jumped into his brougham.
"He was ghastly pale when he first looked up," said the man to the female circle downstairs, "and had great red lines round his eyes. Sometimes I think he's gone off his 'ead! He's never been the same man since missus's death."