smiled, and said no more. So many times, in other days, had things
like this occurred; so many times had she been quite unable to get any
lucid exposition from him of the strange occurrences, that, lately,
she never probed him for an explanation. She well knew, in advance,
that she would get none, and was unwilling to compel him into laboring
evasions. But such matters sorely puzzled her.

She did not learn, therefore, that the tall and handsome man who had
so curiously stared at them was the Exalted Personage; she did not
learn why it had been that from him Kreutzer had fled swiftly with
her, obviously worrying intensely lest they might be followed. She did
not know why, later, she was in closer espionage than ever. Two or
three days afterwards, when Kreutzer came in with his pockets full of
steamship time-tables and emigration-agents' folders, she did not
dream that it was that the Most Exalted Personage had cast his eyes
upon them, rather than the fact that wonderful advantages were
promised to the emigrant by all this steamship literature, which had
made him make a wholly unexpected plan to go from London and to cross
the mighty sea. He swore her to close secrecy.

It was with the utmost difficulty that she concealed their destination
from the landlady and from the slavey who assisted her in packing the
small trunks which held their all. She was always glad of anything
which made it absolutely necessary for them to be with her, for her
father, long ago, had told her not to ask them into their small rooms
when their presence there was not imperatively needed. She was and had
been, ever since she could remember clearly, very lonely, full of
longing for companionship--so very full of longing that, had he not
commanded it, she would not have been, as he was, particular about the
social status of the friends she made.