"Where do you spring from all at once, colonel? You can't have ordered a special train, and if you came through the air, I never knew before you had mastered the art of flying; and I am sure your wife didn't--did you, my pet? You see, she is rendered speechless with astonishment."
Thus she talked on, giving Lilly a few moments in which to collect herself.
Forced to render account of his movements, he said that as he drove to the station he had remembered that it was a neighbouring squire's birthday, and, changing his plans on the spot, had turned round and gone to help in the celebration of the happy event instead of going to town.
"That is always the way," said Fräulein von Schwertfeger; "the most extraordinary events have the simplest explanations. Good-night, dearest. I hope you will sleep well, and wake up without headache."
The colonel was on the alert. "Why, if she had a headache, didn't you leave her to go to sleep long ago?" he asked.
Fräulein von Schwertfeger was equal to the occasion, and without hesitating a moment she replied:
"Lilly asked me to get her compresses again, but I thought it wiser just to lay a cool hand on her forehead. Now I think we ought to leave her alone, don't you, colonel? Goodnight!"
Thereupon she extinguished the blue lamp.
Lilly felt she must scream out: "Don't go! stay here, or he'll strangle me!"
She was already out of the room, and so effectual had her diplomacy been, that the colonel, with a few civilities about her headache, retired to his own room without further questions. Otherwise a breakdown of Lilly's nerves might have brought things to the inevitable crisis there and then.