The pursuit of the unknown quantity was extremely absorbing; for the present it taxed all Acton's faculties.
Toward the middle of August he was obliged to leave home for some days; an old friend, with whom he had been associated in China, had begged him to come to Newport, where he lay extremely ill.

His friend got better, and at the end of a week Acton was released.

I use the word "released" advisedly; for in spite of his attachment to his Chinese comrade he had been but a half-hearted visitor.

He felt as if he had been called away from the theatre during the progress of a remarkably interesting drama.
The curtain was up all this time, and he was losing the fourth act; that fourth act which would have been so essential to a just appreciation of the fifth.

In other words, he was thinking about the Baroness, who, seen at this distance, seemed a truly brilliant figure.