He saw her face go grey with the hue of ashes. "Aunt Maggie!" he cried, and got up quickly and went to her. "I don't mean to be unkind. I must go. I cannot stay. But I'm not going angry—not running away. I love you—love you, you know how I love you. Just think of it as going on a visit. It's no more than that. I'm going with old Japhra—that's not like going, being with him, is it?"
She just said: "When, dear?"
"Darling, in the morning. At daybreak."
IV
She began to cry, and clung to him. But it was more than losing him had made that ashy hue in her face that had wrung his heart. It was realisation of a sudden thing that menaced her revenge—a thing suddenly arisen in its long, long path whose end she now was reaching. Thinking, when the hour came, the more dreadfully to strike Lady Burdon, she had deliberately made possible and had encouraged the friendship between Percival and Rollo. Had she gone too far? What when she told Percival and he saw it was "Old Rollo" he was to displace, "Old Rollo" upon whom he was to bring disaster—what if—?
She dared not so much as finish that question.
CHAPTER X
WITH EGBERT IN FREEDOM
I