"It seems to me that you need watching over as much as ever you did when you was a little baby-girl. I don't see why you should be abandoned in your need any more than you're willing to abandon me. If I can be any sort of help to you, I won't try to leave London at all. I can hide away somewhere no doubt as other folks have done. There are places at the East-end where no one would notice me. Shall I stay, Cynthia?"
"Dear father! No, you will be no help to me—no comfort—if you are in danger!"
He put his arm round her and pressed her close to him; but he did not speak again until they reached the station. The streets were noisy, and conversation was well-nigh impossible. When they got out, Cynthia paid the cabman and dismissed him. Her father walked forward, glancing round him suspiciously as he went. It was a quarter to eleven o'clock. Cynthia joined him in a dark corner of the great entrance-hall.
"I will take your ticket," she said, "where will you go?"
Westwood hesitated for a moment.
"It's not safe, Cynthia. I will not go at all. I should only be arrested at the other end; I am sure of it. I'll tell you what we will do. You may go and take a ticket for Liverpool and bring it to me—in full view of that policeman there, who is eyeing us so suspiciously. Then you must say 'good-bye' and walk straight out of the station. I will mingle with the crowd on the platform; but I will not go by train—I'll slip eastward and lose myself in Whitechapel. I've made up my mind—I don't start for Liverpool to-day."
"Perhaps you are right," said Cynthia, in a faltering voice. "But how shall I know where you are?"
"Better for you not to know, my dear. I shall put them off the scent in this way, and you will have no idea of what has become of me. Now get my ticket and say good-bye—as affectionate and as public as you like. It will all tell in the long run; that bobby has his eye on us."
Cynthia did as she was desired. Her father kissed her pale, agitated face several times, and made his adieux rather unnecessarily conspicuous. Then Cynthia left the station, and her father made his way to the platform, where he mingled with the crowd, and finally got away by another door, and turned his face towards the illimitable east of London.
Cynthia did not take a cab again. It was a relief to her to walk, and she was in a neighborhood that she knew very well. She turned into Euston Square, then down Woburn Place, and through Tavistock Square to Russell Square. She could not stay away from Hubert any longer.