'You must be perfectly exhausted.'
'What I most wish for is breakfast.'
'Then let us go and see if we can't get some. Gertrud will be up by now, and can produce coffee at the shortest notice.'
'Who is Gertrud? Another dear little cousin? If it be so, lead me, I pray thee, at once to Gertrud.'
I laughed, and explaining Gertrud to him helped him pack his pocket again. Then we started for the hotel full of hope, each thinking that if Charlotte were not already there she would very soon turn up.
But Charlotte was not there, nor did she, though we loitered over our coffee till we ended by being as late as the latest tourist, turn up. 'She is certain to come during the day,' said the Professor.
I told him I had arranged to go to Glowe that day, a little place farther along the coast; and he said he would, in that case, engage my vacant pavilion-bedroom for himself and stay that night at Stubbenkammer. 'She is certain to come here,' he repeated; 'and I will not lose her a second time.'
'You won't like the pavilion,' I remarked.
About eleven, there being still no signs of Charlotte, I set out on foot on the first stage of my journey to Glowe, sending the carriage round by road to meet me at Lohme, the place where I meant to stop for lunch, and going myself along the footpath down on the shore. The Professor, who was a great walker and extraordinarily active for his years, came with me part of the way. He intended, he said, to go into Sassnitz that afternoon if Charlotte did not appear before then and make inquiries, and meanwhile he would walk a little with me; so we started very gaily down the same zigzag path up which I had crawled dripping a few hours before. At the bottom of the ravine the shore-path from Stubbenkammer to Lohme begins. It is a continuation of the lovely path from Sassnitz, but, less steep, it keeps closer to the beach. It is a white chalk path running along the foot of cliffs clothed with moss and every kind of wild-flower and fern. Masses of the leaves of lilies of the valley show what it must look like in May, and on the day we walked there the space between the twisted beech trunks—twisted into the strangest contortions under the lash of winter storms—was blue with wild campanula.
What a walk that was. The sea lay close to our feet in great green and blue streaks; the leaves of the beeches on our left seemed carved in gold, they shone so motionless against the sky; and the Professor was so gay, so certain that he was going to find Charlotte, that he almost danced instead of walking. He talked to me, there is no doubt, as he might have talked to quite a little child—of erudition there was not a sign, of wisdom in Brosy's sense not a word; but what of that? The happy result was that I understood him, and I know we were very merry. If I were Charlotte nothing would induce me to stir from the side of a good-natured man who could make me laugh. Why, what a quality in a husband, how precious and how rare. Think of living with a person who looks at the world with the kindliest amused eyes. Imagine having a perpetual spring of pleasant mirth in one's own house, babbling coolly of refreshing things on days when life is dusty. Must not wholesomeness pervade the very cellars and lumber-rooms of such a home? Well, I meant to do all in my power to persuade Charlotte to go into the home again. How delightful to be the means of doing the dear old man beside me a good turn! Meanwhile he walked along happily, all unconscious that I was meditating good turns, perhaps happy for that very reason, and full of confidence in his ability to catch and to keep Charlotte. 'Where she goes I go with her,' he said. 'I now have my summer leisure and can devote myself entirely to her.'