mistress were; it took
time for him to make out her answers, but at last he did. Mijnheer was
at a place (or house) with a name he had never before heard, and would
have been puzzled to say now from this one hearing. It was a distant
bulb farm, and Mijnheer had gone there on business; the fact that
Julia had not returned home naturally did not keep the good man from
his work. These details Rawson-Clew did not know; the name only was
given to him, and that conveyed nothing. Joost, he was told, was
somewhere in the bulb gardens, where, seemed unknown; Mevrouw was at
the house of the notary. Who the notary was, and where he lived, and
why she had gone there were alike as obscure to this inquirer as was
Julia's probable destination. He felt that she might have set out to
find any one of these three people, or she might be lying in wait,
like a foolish child, till he had gone. He went down the drive;
outside the gate he saw some idlers who had been there when he drove
in a little while back; he asked them if any one answering to the
girl's description had come out. They told him "ja," and they also
told him which direction she had taken; it was the way that led to the
market, not the residential part of the town.

He was no better off for this information; there seemed nothing to be
done. It would have been little short of absurd, if, indeed, it had
not been seriously compromising to Julia, for him to present himself
at the house of the notary--when he could find it--and tell Vrouw Van
Heigen he had brought Julia home and she was afraid to appear with
him. Either he and she must act together and appear together, or else
he must, as she desired and now made necessary, keep out of it
altogether. Considerably annoyed with the girl, but at the same time
uneasy about her, he went to his hotel.

As the morning wore on, the annoyance lessened and the uneasiness
grew. After all he was not sure that Julia had thrown away much by
refusing to have the support of his company; had they two been there
waiting for the Van Heigens' return, or had they set out together to
find them, he was not sure his presence would have been any help in
the face of the jealous Dutch girl's accusations. A jealous woman,
even an ordinarily foolish one, is a very dangerous thing when she is
attacking a fancied rival with a chance of encompassing her overthrow.
Denah would have got her tale told, her case proven, indignation
aroused and sympathy with her bef