er, and I must see Riversley Grange, and the truth is you must
take me there. I suspect you have your peace to make; perhaps I shall
help you, and be a true Peribanou. We go over Amsterdam, the Hague,
Brussels, and you shall see the battlefield, Paris, straight to London.
Yes, you are fickle; you have not once called me Peribanou.'

Her voluble rattling succeeded in fencing off my questions before I
could exactly shape them, as I staggered from blind to blind idea, now
thinking of the sombre red Bench, and now of the German prince's Court.

'Won't you tell me any more to-night?' I said, when she paused.

'Indeed, I have not any more to tell,' she assured me.

It was clear to me that she had joined the mysterious league against
my father. I began to have a choking in the throat. I thanked her and
wished her good-night while I was still capable of smiling.

At my next interview with Colonel Goodwin he spoke promptly on the
subject of my wanderings. I was of an age, he said, to know my own
interests. No doubt filial affection was excellent in its way, but in
fact it was highly questionable whether my father was still at the
Court of this German prince; my father had stated that he meant to visit
England to obtain an interview with his son, and I might miss him by
a harum-scarum chase over Germany. And besides, was I not offending
my grandfather and my aunt, to whom I owed so much? He appealed to my
warmest feelings on their behalf. This was just the moment, he said,
when there was a turning-point in my fortunes. He could assure me most
earnestly that I should do no good by knocking at this prince's doors,
and have nothing but bitterness if I did in the end discover my father.
'Surely you understand the advantages of being bred a gentleman?' he
wound up. 'Under your grandfather's care you have a career before you,
a fine fortune in prospect, everything a young man can wish for. And I
must tell you candidly, you run great risk of missing all these things
by hunting your father to earth. Give yourself a little time: reflect on
it.'

'I have,' I cried. 'I have come out to find him, and I must.'

The colonel renewed his arguments and persuasions until he was worn out.
I thanked him continually for his kindness. Clara Goodwin besought me
in a surprising manner to accompany her to England, called herself
Peribanou, and with that name conjured up my father to my eyes in his
breathing form. She said, as her father had done, t