Kitabı oku: «Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 2», sayfa 2

“So much for popular gratitude, my Lord,” said Dunn, as he handed the slip of paper to the Earl. “Fortunately, it was never the prize on which I had set my heart. Mr. Hankes,” said he, in a bland, calm voice, “the crowd seems scarcely diminished outside. Will you kindly affix a notice on the door, to state that, to convenience the public, the Bank will on this day continue open till five o’clock?”

“By Heaven! they don’t deserve such courtesy!” cried the old Lord, passionately. “Be as just as you please, but show them no generosity. If it be thus they treat the men who devote their best energies, their very lives, to the country, I, for one, say it is not a land to live in, and I spurn them as countrymen!”

“What would you have, my Lord? The best troops have turned and fled under the influence of a panic; the magic words, ‘We are mined!’ once routed the very column that had stormed a breach! You don’t expect to find the undisciplined masses of mankind more calmly courageous than the veterans of a hundred fights.”

A wild hoarse cheer burst forth in the street at this moment, and drowned all other sounds.

“What is it now? Are they going to attack us here?” cried the Earl.

The cry again arose, louder and wilder, and the shouts of “Dunn forever! Dunn forever!” burst from a thousand voices.

“The placard has given great satisfaction, sir,” said Hankes, reappearing. “Confidence is fully restored.”

And, truly, it was strange to see how quickly a popular sentiment spread its influence; for they who now came forward to exchange their notes for gold no longer wore the sturdy air of defiance of the earlier applicants, but approached half reluctantly, and with an evident sense of shame, as though yielding to an ignoble impulse of cowardice and fear. The old Earl’s haughty stare and insolent gaze were little calculated to rally the diffident; for with his double eyeglass he scanned each new-comer with the air of a man saying, “I mark, and I ‘ll not forget you!”

What a contrast was Dunn’s expression, – that look so full of gentle pity and forgiveness! Nothing of anger, no resentfulness, disfigured the calm serenity of his pale features. He had a word of recognition – even a smile and a kind inquiry – for some of those who now bashfully tried to screen themselves from notice. The great rush was already over; a visible change had come over that vast multitude who so lately clamored aloud for gold. The very aspect of that calm, unmoved face was a terrible rebuke to their unworthy terror.

“It’s nigh over, sir,” whispered Hankes to his chief, as he stood with his massive gold watch in the hollow of his hand. “Seven hundred only have been paid out in the last twelve minutes. The battle is finished!”

The vociferous cheering without continued unceasingly, and yells for Dunn to come forth and show himself filled the air.

“Do you hear them?” asked Lord Glengariff, looking eagerly at Dunn.

“Yes, my Lord. It is a very quick reaction. Popular opinion is generally correct in the main; but it is rare to find it reversing its own judgments so suddenly.”

“Very dispassionately spoken, sir,” said the old Lord, haughtily; “but what if you had been unprepared for this onslaught to-day, – what if they had succeeded in compelling you to suspend payments?”

“Had such been possible, my Lord, we would have richly deserved any reverse that might have befallen us. What is it, Hankes?” cried he, as that gentleman endeavored to get near him.

“You’ll have to show yourself, sir; you must positively address them in a few words from the balcony.”

“I do not think so, Hankes. This is a mere momentary burst of popular feeling.”

“Not at all, sir. Listen to them now; they are shouting madly for you. To decline the call will be taken as pride. I implore you to come out, if only for a few minutes.”

“I suppose he is right, Dunn,” said Lord Glengariff, half doggedly. “For my own part, I have not the slightest pretension to say how popular demonstrations – I believe that is the word for them – are to be treated. Street gatherings, in my day, were called mobs, and dispersed by horse police; our newer civilization parleys to them and flatters them. I suppose you understand the requirements of the times we live in.”

The clamor outside was now deafening, and by its tone seemed, in some sort, to justify what Hankes had said, that Dunn’s indifference to their demands would be construed into direct insult.

“Do it at once!” cried Hankes, eagerly, “or it will be too late. A few words spoken now will save us thirty thousand pounds to-morrow.”

This whisper in Dunn’s ear decided the question, and, turning to the Earl, he said, “I believe, my Lord, Mr. Hankes is right; I ought to show myself.”

“Come along, then,” said the old Lord, heartily; and he took his arm with an air that said, “I ‘ll stand by you throughout.”

Scarcely had Dunn entered the drawing-room, than Lady Augusta met him, her cheek flushed and her eyes flashing. “I am so glad,” cried she, “that you are going to address them. It is a proud moment for you.”

When the window opened, and Davenport Dunn appeared on the balcony, the wild roar of the multitude made the air tremble; for the cry was taken up by others in remote streets, and came echoing back, again and again. I have heard that consummate orators – men practised in all the arts of public speaking – have acknowledged that there is no such severe test, in the way of audience, as that mixed assemblage called a mob, wherein every class has its representative, and every gradation its type. Now, Dunn was not a great public speaker. The few sentences he was obliged to utter on the occasions of his health being drunk cost him no uncommon uneasiness; he spoke them, usually, with faltering accents and much diffidence. It happens, however, that the world is often not displeased at these small signs of confusion – these little defects in oratorical readiness – in men of acknowledged ability, and even prefer them to the rapid flow and voluble ease of more practised orators. There is, so to say, a mock air of sincerity in the professions of a man whose feelings seem fuller than his words, – something that implies the heart to be in the right place, though the tongue be but a poor exponent of its sentiments; and lastly, the world is always ready to accept the embarrassment of the speaker as an evidence of the grateful emotions that are swaying him. Hence the success of country gentlemen in the House; hence the hearty cheers that follow the rambling discursiveness of bucolic eloquence!

If Mr. Dunn was not an orator, he was a keen and shrewd observer, and one fact he had noticed, which was that the shouts and cries of popular assemblages are to an indifferent speaker pretty much what an accompaniment is to a bad singer, – the aids by which he surmounts difficult passages and conceals his false notes. Mr. Hankes, too, well understood how to lead this orchestra, and had already taken his place on the steps of the door beneath.

Dunn stood in front of the balcony, Lord Glengariff at his side and a little behind him. With one hand pressed upon his heart, he bowed deeply to the multitude. “My kind friends,” said he, in a low voice, but which was audible to a great distance, “it has been my fortune to have received at different times of my life gratifying assurances of sympathy and respect, but never in the whole course of a very varied career do I remember an occasion so deeply gratifying to my feelings as the present. (Cheers, that lasted ten minutes and more.) It is not,” resumed he, with more energy, – “it is not at a moment like this, surrounded by brave and warm hearts, when the sentiments of affection that sway you are mingled with the emotions of my own breast, that I would take a dark or gloomy view of human nature, but truth compels me to say that the attack made this day upon my credit – for I am the Ossory Bank – (loud and wild cheering) – yes, I repeat it, for the stability of this institution I am responsible by all I possess in this world. Every share, every guinea, every acre I own are here! Far from me to impute ungenerous or unworthy motives to any quarter; but, my worthy friends, there has been foul play – (groans) – there has been treachery – (deeper groans) – and my name is not Davenport Dunn but it shall be exposed and punished. (Cries of “More power to ye,” and hearty cheers, greeted this solemn assurance.)

“I am, as you are well aware, and I glory in declaring it, one of yourselves. (Here the enthusiasm was tremendous.) By moderate abilities, hard work, and unflinching honesty – for that is the great secret – I have become that you see me to-day! (Loud cheering.) If there be amongst you any who aspire to my position, I tell him that nothing is easier than to attain it. I was a poor scholar – you know what a poor scholar is – when the generous nobleman you see now at my side first noticed me. (Three cheers for the Lord were proposed and given most heartily.) His generous patronage gave me my first impulse in life. I soon learned how to do the rest. (“That ye did;” “More power and success to ye,” here ran through the mob.) Now, it was at the table of that noble Lord – enjoying the first real holiday in thirty years of toil – that I received a telegraphic despatch, informing me there would be a run for gold upon this Bank before the week was over. I vow to you I did not believe it. I spurned the tidings as a base calumny upon the people, and as I handed the despatch to his Lordship to read, I said, ‘If this be possible – and I doubt it much – it is the treacherous intrigue of an enemy, not the spontaneous movement of the public.’ (Here Lord Glengariff bowed an acquiescence to the statement, a condescension on his part that speedily called for three vociferous cheers for “the Lord,” once more.)

“I am no lawyer,” resumed Dunn, with vigor, – “I am a plain man of the people, whose head was never made for subtleties; but this I tell you, that if it be competent for me to offer a reward for the discovery of those who have hatched this conspiracy, my first care will be on my return to Dublin to propose ten thousand pounds for such information as may establish their guilt! (Cheering for a long time followed these words.) They knew that they could not break the Bank, – in their hearts they knew that our solvency was as complete as that of the Bank of England itself, – but they thought that by a panic, and by exciting popular feeling against me, I, in my pride of heart and my conscious honesty, might be driven to some indignant reaction; that I might turn round and say, Is this the country I have slaved for? Are these the people for whose cause I have neglected personal advancement, and disregarded the flatteries of the great? Are these the rewards of days of labor and nights of anxiety and fatigue?”

They fancied, possibly, that, goaded by what I might have construed into black ingratitude, I would say, like Coriolanus, ‘I banish you!’ But they little knew either you or me, my warm-hearted friends! (Deafening cheers.) They little knew that the well-grounded confidence of a nation cannot be obliterated by the excitement of a moment. A panic in the commercial, like a thunder-storm in the physical world, only leaves the atmosphere lighter, and the air fresher than before; and so I say to you, we shall all breathe more freely when we rise to-morrow, – no longer to see the dark clouds overhead, nor hear the rumbling sounds that betoken coming storm.

“I have detained you too long. (“No, no!” vociferously broke forth.) I have spoken also too much about myself. (“Not a bit; we could listen to ye till mornin’,” shouted a wild voice, that drew down hearty laughter.) But, before I go, I wish to say, that, hard pressed as we are in the Bank – sorely inconvenienced by the demands upon us – I am yet able to ask your excellent Mayor to accept of five hundred pounds from me for the poor of this city – (what a yell followed this announcement! plainly indicating what a personal interest the tidings seemed to create) – and to add – (loud cheers) – and to add – (more cheers) – and to add,” cried he, in his deepest voice, “that the first toast I will drink this day shall be, The Boys of Kilkenny!”

It is but justice to add that Mr. Dunn’s speech was of that class of oratory that “hears” better than it reads, while his audience was also less critically disposed than may be our valued reader. At all events, it achieved a great success; and within an hour after its delivery hawkers cried through the streets of the city, “The Full and True Account of the Run for Gold, with Mr. Dunn’s Speech to the People;” and, sooth to say, that though the paper was not “cream laid,” and though many of the letters were upside down, the literature had its admirers, and was largely read. Later on, the city was illuminated, two immense letters of D. D. figuring in colored lamps in front of the town-hall, while copious libations of whiskey-punch were poured forth in honor of the Man of the People. In every rank and class, from the country gentleman who dined at the club-house, to the smallest chop-house in John Street, there was but one sentiment, – that Dunn was a fine fellow, and his enemies downright scoundrels. If a few of nicer taste and more correct feeling were not exactly pleased with his speech, they wisely kept their opinions to themselves, and let “the Ayes have it,” who pronounced it to be manly, above-board, modest, and so forth.

Throughout the entire evening Mr. Hankes was everywhere, personally or through his agents; his care was to collect public sentiment, to ascertain what popular opinion thought of the whole events of the morning, and to promote, so far as he could with safety, the flattering estimate already formed of his chief. Scarcely half an hour elapsed without Dunn’s receiving from his indefatigable lieutenant some small scrap of paper, with a few words hastily scrawled in this fashion: —

“Rice and Walsh’s, Nine o’clock. – Company in the coffee-room enthusiastic; talk of a public dinner; some propose portrait in town-hall.”

“A quarter to Ten, Judy’s, Rose Inn Street. – Comic song, with a chorus: —

 
“‘If for gold ye run,
Says the Shan van Voght;
If for gold ye run,
I’ll send for Davy Dunn,
He’s the boy to show ye fun,
Says the Shan van Voght!’”
 

“Eleven o’clock, High Street. – Met the Dean, who says, ‘D. D. is an honor to us; we are all proud of him.’ The county your own when you want it.”

“Twelve o’clock. – If any one should venture to ask for gold to-morrow, he will be torn to pieces by the mob.”

Assuredly it was a triumph; and every time that the wild cheers from the crowds in the street broke in upon the converse in the drawing-room, Lady Augusta’s eyes would sparkle as she said, “I don’t wonder at your feeling proud of it all!”

And he did feel proud of it. Strange as it may seem, he was as proud as though the popularity had been earned by the noblest actions and the most generous devotion. We are not going to say why or wherefore this. And now for a season we take our leave of him to follow the fortunes of some others whose fate we seem to have forgotten. We have the less scruple for deserting Davenport Dunn at this moment, that we leave him happy, prospering, and in good company.

CHAPTER III. A NOTE FROM DAVIS

Am I asking too much of my esteemed reader, if I beg of him to remember where and how I last left the Honorable Annesley Beecher? for it is to that hopeful individual and his fortunes I am now about to return.

If it be wearisome to the reader to have his attention suddenly drawn from the topic before him, and his interest solicited for those he has well-nigh forgotten, let me add that it is almost as bad for the writer, who is obliged to hasten hither and thither, and, like a huntsman with a straggling pack, to urge on the tardy, correct the loiterer, and repress the eager.

When we parted with Annesley Beecher, he was in sore trouble and anxiety of mind; a conviction was on him that he was “squared,” “nobbled,” “crossed,” “potted,” or something to the like intent and with a like euphonious designation. “The Count and Spicer were conspiring to put him in a hole!” As if any “hole” could be as dark, as hopeless, and as deep as the dreary pitfall of his own helpless nature!

His only resource seemed flight; to break cover at once and run for it, appeared the solitary solution of the difficulty. There was many a spot in the map of Europe which offered a sanctuary against Grog Davis. But what if Grog were to set the law in motion, where should he seek refuge then? Some one had once mentioned to him a country with which no treaty connected us with regard to criminals. It began, if he remembered aright, with an S; was it Sardinia or Sweden or Spain or Sicily or Switzerland? It was surely one of them, but which? “What a mass of rubbish, to be sure,” thought he, “they crammed me with at Rugby, but not one solitary particle of what one could call useful learning! See now, for instance, what benefit a bit of geography might be to me!” And he rambled on in his mind, concocting an educational scheme which would really fit a man for the wear and tear of life.

It was thus reflecting he entered the inn and mounted to his room; his clothes lay scattered about, drawers were crammed with his wearables, and the table covered with a toilet equipage, costly, and not yet paid for. Who was to pack all these? Who was to make up that one portmanteau which would suffice for flight, including all the indispensable and rejecting the superfluous? There is a case recorded of a Frenchman who was diverted from his resolve on suicide by discovering that his pistols were not loaded, and, incredible as it may seem, Beecher was deterred from his journey by the thought of how he was to pack his trunk; He had never done so much for himself since he was born, and he did n’t think he could do it; at all events, he wasn’t going to try. Certain superstitious people are impressed with the notion that making a will is a sure prelude to dying; so others there are who fancy that, by the least effort on their own behalf, they are forecasting a state of poverty in which they must actually work for subsistence.

How hopelessly, then, did he turn over costly waistcoats and embroidered shirts, gaze on richly cut and crested essence-bottles and boot-boxes, whose complexity resembled mathematical instruments! In what manner they were ever conveyed so far he could not imagine. The room seemed actually filled with them. It was Rivers had “put them up;” but Rivers could no longer be trusted, for he was evidently in the “lay” against him.

He sighed heavily at this: it was a dreary, hopeless sigh over the depravity of the world and mankind in general. “And what a paradise it might be,” he thought, “if people would only let themselves be cheated quietly and peaceably, neither threatening with their solicitors, nor menacing with the police. Heaven knew how little he asked for: a safe thing now and then on the Derby, a good book on the Oaks; he wanted no more! He bore no malice nor ill-will to any man breathing; he never wished to push any fellow to the wall. If ever there was a generous heart, it beat in his bosom; and if the world only knew the provocation he had received! No matter, he would never retaliate, – he ‘d die game, be a brick to the last;” and twenty other fine things of the same sort that actually brought the tears to his own eyes over his own goodness.

Goodness, however, will not pack a trunk, nor will moral qualities, however transcendent, fold cravats and dress-coats, and he looked very despondently around him, and thought over what he half fancied was the only thing he could n’t do. So accustomed had he been of late to seek Lizzy Davis’s counsel in every moment of difficulty, that actually, without knowing it, he descended now to the drawing-room, some vague, undefined feeling impelling him to be near her.

She was singing at the piano, all alone, as he entered; the room, as usual, brilliantly lighted up as if to receive company, rare flowers and rich plants grouped tastefully about, and “Daisy” – for she looked that name on this occasion – in one of those charming “toilettes” whose consummate skill it is to make the most costly articles harmonize into something that seems simplicity itself. She wore a fuchsia in her hair, and another – only this last was of coral and gold elaborately and beautifully designed – on the front of her dress, and, except these, nothing more of ornament.

“Tutore mio,” said she, gayly, as he entered, “you have treated me shamefully; for, first of all, you were engaged to drive with me to the Kreutz Berg, and, secondly, to take me to the opera, and now, at half-past nine, you make your appearance. How is this, Monsieur? Expliquez-vous.”

“Shall I tell the truth?” said he.

“By all means, if anything so strange should n’t embarrass you.”

“Well, then, I forgot all about both the drive and the opera. It’s all very well to laugh,” said he, in a tone of half pique; “young ladies, with no weightier cares on their hearts than whether they ought to wear lilac or green, have very little notion of a man’s anxieties. They fancy that life is a thing of white and red roses, soft music and bouquets; but it ain’t.”

“Indeed! are you quite sure?” asked she, with an air of extreme innocence.

“I suspect I am,” said he, confidently; “and there’s not many a man about town knows more of it than I do.”

“And now, what may be the cares, or, rather, for I don’t want to be curious, what sort of cares are they that oppress that dear brain? Have you got any wonderful scheme for the amelioration of mankind to which you see obstacles? Are your views in politics obstructed by ignorance or prejudice? Have you grand notions about art for which the age is not ripe; or are you actually the author of a wonderful poem that nobody has had taste enough to appreciate?”

“And these are your ideas of mighty anxieties, Miss Lizzy?” said he, in a tone of compassionate pity. “By Jove! how I’d like to have nothing heavier on my heart than the whole load of them.”

“I think you have already told me you never were crossed in love?”

“Well, nothing serious, you know. A scratch or so, as one may say, getting through the bushes, but never a cropper, – nothing like a regular smash.”

“It would seem to me, then, that you have enjoyed a singularly fortunate existence, and been just as lucky in life as myself.”

Beecher started at the words. What a strange chaos did they create within him! There is no tracing the thoughts that came and went, and lost themselves in that poor bewildered head. The nearest to anything like, consistency was the astonishment he felt that she – Grog Davis’s daughter – should ever imagine she had drawn a prize in the world’s lottery.

“Yes, Mr. Beecher,” said she, with the ready tact with which she often read his thoughts and answered them, “even so. I do think myself very, very fortunate! And why should I not? I have excellent health, capital spirits, fair abilities, and, bating an occasional outbreak of anger, a reasonably good temper. As regards personal traits, Mr. Annesley Beecher once called me beautiful; Count Lienstahl would say something twice as rapturous; at all events, quite good-looking enough not to raise antipathies against me at first sight; and lastly, but worth all the rest, I have an intense enjoyment in mere existence; the words ‘I live’ are to me, ‘I am happy.’ The alternations of life, its little incidents and adventures, its passing difficulties, are, like the changeful aspects of the seasons, full of interest, full of suggestiveness, calling out qualities of mind and resources of temperament that in the cloudless skies of unbroken prosperity might have lain unused and unknown. And now, sir, no more sneers at my fancied good fortune; for, whatever you may say, I feel it to be real.”

There was that in her manner – a blended energy and grace – which went far deeper into Beecher’s heart than her mere words, and he gazed at her slightly flushed cheek and flashing eyes with something very nearly rapture; and he muttered to himself, “There she is, a half-bred ‘un, and no training, and able to beat them all!”

This time, at all events, she did not read his thoughts; as little, perhaps, did she care to speculate about them. “By the by,” said she, suddenly approaching the chimney and taking up a letter, “this has arrived here, by private hand, since you went out, and it has a half-look of papa’s writing, and is addressed to you.”

Beecher took it eagerly. With a glance he recognized it as from Grog, when that gentleman desired to disguise his hand.

“Am I correct?” asked she, – “am I correct in my guess?”

He was too deep in the letter to make her any reply. Its contents were as follows: —

“Dear B., – They ‘ve kicked up such a row about that affair at Brussels that I have been obliged to lie dark for the last fortnight, and in a confoundedly stupid hole on the right bank of the Rhine. I sent over Spicer to meet the Baron, and take Klepper over to Nimroeguen and Magdeburg, and some other small places in Prussia. They can pick up in this way a few thousand florins, and keep the mill going. I gave him strict orders not to see my daughter, who must know nothing whatever of these or any like doings. The Baron she might see, for he knows life thoroughly, and if he is not a man of high honor, he can assume the part so well that it comes pretty much to the same thing. As to yourself, you will, on receipt of this, call on a certain Lazarus Stein, Juden Gasse, Nov 41 or 42, and give him your acceptance for two thousand gulden, with which settle your hotel bill, and come on to Bonn, where, at the post-office, you will find a note, with my address. Tramp, you see, has won the Cotteswold, as I prophesied, and ‘Leo the Tenth’ nowhere.

Cranberry must have got his soup pretty hot, for he has come abroad, and his wife and the children gone down to Scotland.

As to your own affairs, Ford says you are better out of the way; and if anything is to be done in the way of compromise, it must be while you are abroad. He does not think Strich can get the rule, and you must n’t distress yourself for an extra outlawry or two. There will be some trouble about the jewels, but I think even that matter may be arranged also. I hope you keep from the tables, and I look for a strict reckoning as to your expenses, and a stricter book up as regards your care of my daughter. ‘All square’ is the word between pal and pal, and there never was born the man did n’t find that to be his best policy when he dealt with

“Your friend,

“Christopher Davis.

“To while away the time in this dreary dog-hole, I have been sketching out a little plan of a martingale for the roulette-table. There’s only one zero at Homburg, and we can try it there as we go up. There’s a flaw in it after the twelfth ‘pass,’ but I don’t despair of getting over the difficulty. Old Stein, the money-changer, was upwards of thirty years croupier at the Cursaal, and get him to tell you the average runs, black and red, at rouge-et-noir, and what are the signs of an intermitting game; and also the six longest runs he has ever known. He is a shrewd fellow, and seeing that you come from me will be confidential.

“There has been another fight in the Crimea, and somebody well licked. I had nothing on the match, and don’t care a brass farthing who claimed the stakes.

“Tell Lizey that I ‘m longing to see her, and if I didn’t write it is because I ‘m keeping everything to tell her when we meet. If it was n’t for her picture, I don’t know what would have become of me since last Tuesday, when the rain set in.”

Beecher re-read the letter from the beginning; nor was it an easy matter for him to master at once all the topics it included. Of himself and his own affairs the information was vague and unsatisfactory; but Grog knew how to keep him always in suspense, – to make him ever feel that he was swimming for his life, and he himself the only “spar” he could catch at.

“Bring me to book about my care of his daughter!” muttered he, over and over, “just as if she was n’t the girl to take care of herself. Egad! he seems to know precious little about her. I ‘d give a ‘nap’ to show her this letter, and just hear what she ‘d say of it all. I suppose she ‘d split on me. She ‘d go and tell Davis, ‘Beecher has put me up to the whole “rig;”’ and if she did – What would happen then?” asked he, replying to the low, plaintive whistle which concluded his meditation. “Eh – what! did I say anything?” cried he, in terror.

“Not a syllable. But I could see that you had conjured up some difficulty which you were utterly unable to deal with.”

“Well, here it is,” said he, boldly. “This letter is from your father. It’s all full of private details, of which you know nothing, nor would you care to hear; but there is one passage – just one – that I’d greatly like to have your opinion upon. At the same time I tell you, frankly, I have no warranty from your father to let you see it; nay, the odds are he ‘d pull me up pretty sharp for doing so without his authority.”

“That’s quite enough, Mr. Beecher, about your scruples. Now, mine go a little further still; for they would make me refuse to learn anything which my father’s reserve had kept from me. It is a very easy rule of conscience, and neither hard to remember nor to follow.”

“At all events, he meant this for your own eye,” said Beecher, showing her the last few lines of the letter.

She read them calmly over; a slight trembling of the lip – so slight that it seemed rather like a play of light over her face – was the only sign of emotion visible, and then, carefully folding the letter, she gave it back, saying, “Yes, I had a right to see these lines.”

“He is fond of you, and proud of you, too,” said Beecher. A very slight nod of her head gave an assent to his remark, and she was silent. “We are to leave this at once,” continued he, “and move on to Bonn, where we shall find a letter with your father’s address, somewhere, I take it, in that neighborhood.” He waited, hoping she would say something, but she did not speak. And then he went on: