"There was the 6.50 up to town, your Royal Highness," he said, "and the 6.45 down to Southampton. He might have taken either."
Feeling sure that he would have not returned to London, I took the next train to Southampton and made inquiries there. But my efforts were in vain. No one seemed to have seen a person answering to his description. When next morning I called at the various shipping offices I was equally unsuccessful. Almost despairing, I applied for leave and remained at Southampton, day by day, for a week, watching the various boats that left for America and South Africa. So far as I could discover, however, Max was not on board any one of them. At last, wearied with waiting, and hopeless of hearing anything of him, I returned to town, calling _en route_ at Rendlehurst to inform my father and mother of my ill-success.
From that moment, for many years, nothing was heard of poor ill-fated Max of Pannonia.
And now a word to preface the story of Max's adventures as set forth by himself--from the time he wrote the famous letter to me.
Headstrong and wilful as he undoubtedly was, Max was the possessor of a habit which would not be supposed to agree in any way with his other characteristics. In our school days, prompted by a tutor who was method and preciseness in itself, we had been induced to cultivate the habit of keeping a diary. My own fits of application had their limits, and in consequence the record of my own daily life died a natural death within a week of its commencement. Max, however, must either have looked at it in another light, or have been composed of entirely different material. Having set his hand to it, his dogged determination insisted upon his carrying it through; in consequence, the habit grew upon him, and, fortunately for the story I have to tell, it lasted until the day of his death. It is from the last two volumes of this concise, and I might even add remarkable, history that I take the record as it is set down in the following pages. It will be observed that I have put it in the form of a narrative, told by myself, adding explanations where necessary, but in the main preserving the whole in as complete a form as it was originally written. How Max left the Princess Ottilie in the park after his ill-starred interview with her and rode away has already been told. A few other details, however, may prove of interest. As soon as he arrived, it would appear that Felix offered him refreshment, but he declined it, saying that he was in a hurry to catch a train to Hampshire. Seating himself at my writing-table he took a sheet of notepaper and composed the letter which was destined, a few hours afterwards, to cause me so much unhappiness. "Thank heaven, that's done," he said to himself, as he rose to his feet and placed the envelope, which he secured with his private seal, in a conspicuous position upon the table. "Paul will be certain to see it directly he returns." Then having rung the bell for Felix, he bade him send some one to call a cab. Telling him to inform Theodore, his valet, that he would receive his orders from myself, he went down to it, sprang in, and bade the man drive him with all speed to Waterloo. He had barely time to take his ticket, to see that the luggage he himself had packed and sent on ahead earlier in the day had started for Bristol, and then to catch the train. Indeed, the starting bell had already sounded as he crossed the platform.