"There was only one thing that disappointed me," Mrs. Malt was saying at the dinner table of the Cologne hotel, "and that wasn\'t so much what you would call a disappointment as a surprise. White windows-blinds in a robber castle on the Rhine I did not expect to see."

I slipped away before momma had time to announce and explain her disappointments, but I heard her begin. Then I felt safe, for criticism of the Rhine is absorbing matter for conversation. The steamer\'s custom of giving one stewed plums with chicken is an affront to civilisation to last a good twenty minutes by myself. I tried to occupy and calm Isabel\'s mind with it as we walked over to the station, under the twin towers of the Cathedral, but with indifferent success. To add to her agitation at this crisis of her life, the top button came off her glove, and when that happened I felt the inutility of words.

We passed the policemen on the Cathedral square with affected indifference. We believed we were not liable to arrest, but policemen, when one is eloping, have a forbidding look. We refrained, by mutual arrangement, from turning once to look back for possible pursuers, but that is not a thing I would undertake to do again under similar circumstances. We even had the hardihood to buy a box of chocolates on the way, that is, Isabel bought them, while I watched current events at the confectioner\'s door. The station was really only about seven minutes\' walk from the hotel, but it seemed an hour before I was able to point out Dicky, alert and expectant, on the edge of the platform behind the line of cabs.

"So near the fulfilment of his hopes, poor fellow," I remarked.

"Yes," concurred Isabel, "but do you know I almost wish he wasn\'t coming."

"Don\'t tell him so, whatever you do," I exclaimed. "I know Dicky\'s sensitive nature, and it is just as likely as not that he would take you at your word. And I will not elope with you alone."

I need not have been alarmed. Isabel had no intention of reducing the party at the last moment. I listened for protests and hesitations when they met, but all I heard was, "Have you got the bag?"

Dicky had the bag, the tickets, the places, everything. He had already assumed, though only a husband of to-morrow, the imperative and responsible connection with Isabel\'s arrangements. He told her she was to sleep with her head toward the engine, that she was to drink nothing but soda-water at any of the stations, and that she must not, on any account, leave the carriage when we changed for Paris until he came for her. It would be my business to see that these instructions were carried out.

"What shall I do," I asked, "if she cries in the night?"

But Dicky was sweeping us toward the waiting-room, and did not hear me. He placed us carefully in the seats nearest the main door, which opened upon the departure platform, full of people hurrying to and fro, and of the more leisurely movement of shunting trains. The lamps were lighted, though twilight still hung about; the scene was pleasantly exciting. I said to Isabel that I never thought I should enjoy an elopement so much.

"I shall enjoy settling down," she replied thoughtfully. "Dicky has promised me that all the china shall be hand-painted."

"You won\'t mind my leaving you for five seconds," said Mr. Dod, suddenly exploring his breast-pocket; "the train doesn\'t leave for a quarter of an hour yet, and I find I haven\'t a smoke about me," and he opened the door.

"Not more that five seconds then," I said, for nothing is more trying to the nerves than to wait for a train which is due in a few minutes and a man who is buying cigars at the same time.

Dicky left the door open, and that was how I heard a strangely familiar voice, with an inflexion of enforced calm and repression, suddenly address him from behind it.

"Good evening, Dod!"

I did not shriek, or even grasp Isabel\'s hand. I simply got up and stood a little nearer the door. But I have known few moments so electrical.

"My dear chap, how are you?" exclaimed Dicky. "How are you? Staying in Cologne? I\'m just off to Paris."

I thought I heard a heavy sigh, but it was somewhat lost in the trundling of the porters\' trucks.

"Then," said Arthur Page, for I had not been deceived, "it is as I supposed."

"What did you suppose, old chap?" asked Dicky in a joyous and expansive tone.

"You do not go alone?"

The bitterness of this was not a thing that could be communicated to paper and ink.

"Why, no," said Dicky, "the fact is——"

I saw the wave—it was characteristic—with which Mr. Page stopped him. "I have been made acquainted with the facts," he said. "Do not dwell upon them. I do not, cannot, blame you, if you have really won her heart."

"So far as I know," said Dicky, with some hauteur, "there\'s nothing in it to give you the hump."

"Why waste time in idle words?" replied Arthur. "You will lose your train. I could never forgive myself if I were the cause of that."

"You won\'t be," said Dicky sententiously, looking at his watch.

"But I must ask—must demand—the privilege of one parting word," said Arthur firmly. "Do not be apprehensive of any painful scene. I desire only to wish her every happiness, and to bid her farewell."

Mr. Dod, though on the eve of his wedding day, was not wholly oblivious of the love affairs of other people. I could see a new-born and overwhelming comprehension of the situation in his face as he put his head in at the door and beckoned to Isabel. Evidently he could not trust himself to speak.

"Miss Portheris," he said, with magnificent self-control, "Mr. Page. Mr. Page would like to wish you every happiness and to bid you farewell, Isabel, and I don\'t see why he shouldn\'t. We have still five min............