d as I was for this particular
divorce, as if he struggled with a lively desire to see me and Mary
happily married after the shortest possible interval. And indeed he
manifestly wasn't unsympathetic; he had the strongest proclivity for the
romantic and picturesque, and it was largely the romantic
picturesqueness of renunciation that he urged upon me. Philip for the
most part maintained a resentful silence; he was a clenched anger
against me, against Mary, against the flaming possibilities that
threatened the sister of Lord Maxton, that most promising and
distinguished young man.

Of course their plans must have been definitely made before this talk,
probably they had made them overnight, and probably it was Tarvrille had
given them a practicable shape, but he threw over the whole of our talk
so satisfying a suggestion of arrest and prolonged discussion that it
never occurred to me that I should not be able to come again on the
morrow and renew my demand to see Mary. Even when next day I turned my
face to Martens and saw the flag had vanished from the flagstaff, it
seemed merely a token of that household's perturbation. I thought the
house looked oddly blank and sleepy as I drew near, but I did not
perceive that this was because all the blinds were drawn. The door upon
the lawn was closed, and presently the butler came to open it. He was in
an old white jacket, and collarless. "Lady Mary!" he said. "Lady Mary
has gone, sir. She and Mr. Justin went yesterday after you called."

"Gone!" said I. "But where?"

"I _think_ abroad, sir."

"Abroad!"

"I _think_ abroad."

"But---- They've left an address?"

"Only to Mr. Justin's office," said the man. "Any letters will be
forwarded from there."

I paused upon the step. He remained stiffly deferential, but with an air
of having disposed of me. He reproved me tacitly for forgetting that I
ought to conceal my astonishment at this disappearance. He was indeed an
admirable man-servant. "Thank you," said I, and dropped away defeated
from the door.

I went down the broad steps, walked out up the lawn, and surveyed house
and trees and garden and sky. To the heights and the depths and the
uttermost, I knew now what it was to be amazed....

Sec. 12

I had felt myself an actor in a drama, and now I had very much the
feeling an actor would have who answers to a cue and finds himself in
mid-stage with the scenery and the rest of the cast suddenly vanished
behind him. By that