bahnen_. We were at
Cologne, where we had to change and wait half an hour before we could go
on to Elberthal. We sat in the wartesaal, and I had committed to my
charge two bundles, with strict injunctions not to lose them.

Then the doors were opened, and the people made a mad rush to a train
standing somewhere in the dim distance. Merrick, Miss Hallam's maid, had
to give her whole attention to her mistress. I followed close in their
wake, until, as we had almost come to the train, I cast my eyes downward
and perceived that there was missing from my arm a gray shawl of Miss
Hallam's, which had been committed to my charge, and upon which she set
a fidgety kind of value, as being particularly warm or particularly
soft.

Dismayed, I neither hesitated nor thought, but turned, fought my way
through the throng of people to the waiting-room again, hunted every
corner, but in vain, for the shawl. Either it was completely lost, or
Merrick had, without my observing it, taken it under her own protection.
It was not in the waiting-room. Giving up the search I hurried to the
door: it was fast. No one more, it would seem, was to be let out that
way; I must go round, through the passages into the open hall of the
station, and so on to the platform again. More easily said than done.
Always, from my earliest youth up, I have had a peculiar fancy for
losing myself. On this eventful day I lost myself. I ran through the
passages, came into the great open place surrounded on every side by
doors leading to the platforms, offices, or booking offices. Glancing
hastily round, I selected the door which appeared to my imperfectly
developed "locality" to promise egress upon the platform, pushed it
open, and going along a covered passage, and through another door, found
myself, after the loss of a good five minutes, in a lofty deserted wing
of the station, gazing wildly at an empty platform, and feverishly
scanning all the long row of doors to my right, in a mad effort to guess
which would take me from this delightful _terra incognito_ back to my
friends.

_Gepaeck-Expedition_, I read, and thought it did not sound promising.
Telegraphs bureau. Impossible! _Ausgang._ There was the magic word, and
I, not knowing it, stared at it and was none the wiser for its friendly
sign. I heard a hollow whistle in the distance. No doubt it was the
Elberthal train going away, and my heart sunk deep, deep within my
breast. I knew no German word. All I could say