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Rh to read it, stroking down his beard gravely, and I felt it was not so easy to confute a pupil of the school of Metternich. At last, folding the note and handing it back, "Has your friend mentioned," he asked, "Madame Blumenthal's errand at Wiesbaden?"

"You look very wise. I give it up!" said I.

"She's gone there to make the major follow her. He went by the next train."

"And has the major, on his side, dropped you a line?"

"He's not a letter-writer."

"Well," said I, pocketing my letter, "with this document in my hand I'm bound to reserve my judgment. We 'll have a bottle of Johannisberg, and drink to the triumph of virtue."

For a whole week more I heard nothing from Pickering,—somewhat to my surprise, and, as the days went by, not a little to my discomposure. I had expected that his bliss would continue to overflow in an occasional brief bulletin, and his silence was possibly an indication that it had been clouded. At last I wrote to his hotel at Wiesbaden, but received no answer; whereupon, as my next resource, I repaired to his former lodging at Homburg, where I thought it possible he had left property which he would sooner or later send for. There I learned that he had indeed just telegraphed from Cologne for