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“It is true, madame.”

Suddenly Mademoiselle Verbena flung herself down on the Persian carpet at Mrs. Greyne’s large but well-proportioned feet, and, bathing them with her tears, cried in a heartrending manner:

“Madame will let me go! madame will permit me to fly to poor mamma–to close her dying eyes–to kiss once again—-“

Mr. Greyne was visibly affected, and even Mrs. Greyne seemed somewhat put about, for she moved her feet rather hastily out of reach of the dependant’s emotion, and made her scramble up.

“Where is your poor mother?”

“In Paris, madame. In the Rue St. Honore, where I was born. Oh, if she should die there! If she should—-“

Mrs. Greyne raised her hand, commanding silence.

“You wish to go there?”

“If madame permits.”

“When?”

“To-morrow, madame.”

“To-morrow? This is decidedly abrupt.”

“Mais la bronchite, madame, she is abrupt, and death, she may be abrupt.”

“True. One moment!”

There was an instant’s silence for Mrs. Greyne to let loose her brain in. She did so, then said:

“You have my permission. Go to-morrow, but return as soon as possible. I do not wish Adolphus to lose his still uncertain grasp upon the irregular verbs.”

In a flood of grateful tears Mademoiselle Verbena retired to make her preparations. On the morrow she was gone.

The morrow was a day of much perplexity, much bustle and excitement for Mr. Greyne and the valet, Darrell. They were preparing for Algiers. In the morning, at an early hour, Mr. Greyne set forth in the barouche with Mrs. Greyne to purchase African necessaries: a small but well-supplied medicine chest, a pith helmet, a white-and-green umbrella, a Baedeker, a couple of Smith & Wesson Springfield revolvers with a due amount of cartridges, a dozen of Merrin’s exercise-books–on mature reflection Mrs. Creyne thought that two would hardly contain a sufficient amount of African frailty for her present purpose–a packet of lead pencils, some bottles of a remedy for seasickness, a silver flask for cognac, and various other trifles such as travellers in distant continents require.

Meanwhile Darrell was learning French for the journey, and packing his own and his master’s trunks. The worthy fellow, a man of twenty-five summers, had never been across the Channel–the Greynes being by no means prone to foreign travel–and it may, therefore, be imagined that he was in a state of considerable expectation as he laid the trousers, coats, and waistcoats in their respective places, selected such boots as seemed likely to wear well in a tropical climate, and dropped those shirts which are so contrived as to admit plenty of ventilation to the heated body into the case reserved for them.

When Mr. Greyne returned from his shopping excursion the barouche, loaded almost to the gunwale–if one may be permitted a nautical expression in this connection–had to be disburdened, and its contents conveyed upstairs to Mr. Greyne’s bedroom, into which Mrs. Greyne herself presently entered to give directions for their disposing. Nor was it till the hour of sunset that everything was in due order, the straps set fast, the keys duly turned in the locks–the labels–“Mr. Eustace Greyne: Passenger to Algiers: via Marseilles”–carefully written out in a full, round hand. Rook’s tickets had been bought; so now everything was ready, and the last evening in England might be spent by Mr. Greyne in the drawing-room and by Darrell in the servants’ hall quietly, socially, perhaps pathetically.

The pathos of the situation, it must be confessed, appealed more to the master than to the servant. Darrell was very gay, and inclined to be boastful, full of information as to how he would comport himself with “them there Frenchies,” and how he would make “them pore, godless Arabs sit up.” But Mr. Greyne’s attitude of mind was very different. As the night drew on, and Mrs. Greyne and he sat by the wood fire in the magnificent drawing-room, to which they always adjourned after dinner, a keen sense of the sorrow of departure swept over them both.

“How lonely you will feel without me, Eugenia,” said Mr. Greyne. “I have been thinking of that all day.”