It was on a Tuesday morning that Lynde reentered Rivermouth, after an
absence of just eight days. He had started out fresh and crisp as a new
bank-note, and came back rumpled and soiled and tattered, like that same
note in a state to be withdrawn from circulation. The shutters were up
at all the shop-windows in the cobble-paved street, and had the
appearance of not having been taken down since he left. Everything was
unchanged, yet it seemed to Lynde that he had been gone a year.

On Wednesday morning when Mr. Bowlsby came down to the bank he was
slightly surprised at seeing the young cashier at his accustomed desk.
To Mr. Bowlsby's brief interrogations then, and to Miss Mildred
Bowlsby's more categorical questions in the evening, Lynde offered no
very lucid reason for curtailing his vacation. Travelling alone had not
been as pleasant as he anticipated; the horse was a nuisance to look
after; and then the country taverns were snuffy and unendurable. As to
where he had been and what he had seen--he must have seen something and
been somewhere in eight days--his answers were so evasive that Miss
Mildred was positive something distractingly romantic had befallen the
young man.

"If you must know," he said, one evening, "I will tell you where I
went."

"Tell me, then!"

"I went to Constantinople."

Miss Mildred found that nearly impertinent.