coughed out an explanation that he had taken
an abominable cold at that ridiculous parade, and had not shaken it
off yet. He had a notion that change of air would be better for him; it
could not be worse.

He seemed a little vague as to Burnamy, rather than inimical. While the
ladies were still talking eagerly together in proffer and acceptance
of Mrs. March's lamentations that she should be going away just as Miss
Triscoe was coming, he asked if the omnibus for their hotel was there.
He by no means resented Burnamy's assurance that it was, and he did not
refuse to let him order their baggage, little and large, loaded upon
it. By the time this was done, Mrs. March and Miss Triscoe had so far
detached themselves from each other that they could separate after one
more formal expression of regret and forgiveness. With a lament into
which she poured a world of inarticulate emotions, Mrs. March wrenched
herself from the place, and suffered herself, to be pushed toward her
train. But with the last long look which she cast over her shoulder,
before she vanished into the waiting-room, she saw Miss Triscoe and
Burnamy transacting the elaborate politenesses of amiable strangers
with regard to the very small bag which the girl had in her hand. He
succeeded in relieving her of it; and then he led the way out of the
station on the left of the general, while Miss Triscoe brought up the
rear.

LXIII.

From the window of the train as it drew out Mrs. March tried for a
glimpse of the omnibus in which her proteges were now rolling away
together. As they were quite out of sight in the omnibus, which was
itself out of sight, she failed, but as she fell back against her seat
she treated the recent incident with a complexity and simultaneity
of which no report can give an idea. At the end one fatal conviction
remained: that in everything she had said she had failed to explain to
Miss Triscoe how Burnamy happened to be in Weimar and how he happened to
be there with them in the station. She required March to say how she had
overlooked the very things which she ought to have mentioned first, and
which she had on the point of her tongue the whole time. She went over
the entire ground again to see if she could discover the reason why she
had made such an unaccountable break, and it appeared that she was led
to it by his rushing after her with Burnamy before she had had a chance
to say a word about him; of course she could not say anythin