began about Bernhard. To these people I have no
individuality, no separate existence, no brains of my own, no opinions
worth listening to--I am solely of interest as the wife of Bernhard. Oh,
it's maddening! The boy has put I don't know what ideas into his
mother's head. She has actually tried to read one of Bernhard's works,
and she pretends she thought it sublime. She quotes it. I won't stay at
Binz. Let us go on somewhere else to-morrow.'

'But I think Binz looks as if it were a lovely place, and the
Harvey-Brownes look very nice. I am not at all sure that I want to go on
somewhere else to-morrow.'

'Then I'll go on alone, and wait for you at Sassnitz.'

'Oh, don't wait. I mightn't come to Sassnitz.'

'Oh well, I'll be sure to pick you up again somewhere. It isn't a very
big island, and you are a conspicuous object, driving round it.'

This was true. So long as I was on that island I could not hope to
escape Charlotte. I entered Binz in a state of moody acquiescence.

Every hotel was full, and every room in the villas was taken. It was the
Goehren experience over again. At last we found shelter by the merest
chance in the prettiest house in the place--we had not dared inquire
there, certain that its rooms would be taken first of all--a little
house on the sands, overhung at the back by beechwoods, its windows
garnished with bright yellow damask curtains, its roof very red, and its
walls very white. A most cheerful, trim little house, with a nice tiled
path up to the door, and pots of geraniums on its sills. A cleanly
person of the usual decent widow type welcomed us with a cordiality
contrasting pleasantly with the indifference of those widows whose rooms
had been all engaged. The entire lower floor, she said, was at our
disposal. We each had a bedroom opening on to a verandah that seemed to
hang right over the sea; and there was a dining-room, and a beautiful
blue-and-white kitchen if we wanted to cook, and a spacious chamber for
Gertrud. The price was low. Even when I said that we should probably
only stay one or two nights it did not go up. The widow explained that
the rooms were engaged for the entire season, but that the Berlin
gentleman who had taken them was unavoidably prevented coming, which was
the reason why we might have them, for it was not her habit to take in
the passing stranger.

I asked whether it were likely that the Berlin gentleman might yet
appear and turn us out. She stared at me a mome