It was not easy to meet all these requirements, but at length Madame Collier was placed, and the porter disposed of her belongings. Madame Collier counted and recounted, lost and found each packet in succession, fee'd her porter, and woke up to the consciousness of few minutes remaining. A frizzly-haired young woman on the opposite seat was bidding farewell to a frizzly-haired young woman on the platform, their heads filling the open window, while their shrill voices ran fast. Madame Collier, finding herself thus debarred from her own relatives, proceeded to clear a way with scant ceremony:
"Now, young woman! It's my turn, if you please."
"What an old fogey!" murmured audibly the aggrieved individual outside.
Madame Collier disdained to notice the utterance.
"Things are all right now, I do believe," she said, breathing hard with her exertions. "Mind, Jean—I shall want to hear all about everybody. Don't forget to tell me if any more comes out about that man Barclay. And mind you don't go alone to his cottage. Give my love to Evelyn Villiers, when you see her. I wish she had come home before I left. She always was a favourite of mine, though you mayn't think it. Why, there's Jem!"
Jean and her father turned: and Jem Trevelyan came swiftly up.
"Just in time!" he said. "What a crowd! I was afraid I might miss you all. Well—" and his hand grasped Madame Collier's, "so you really are off?"
"Yes; I'm off!" Madame Collier's rugged features worked, and a tiny pool of water stood outside each eye, like a minute tarn upon a mountain height. "I'm off!" she repeated huskily. "It isn't what I should have chosen—of course. People are not allowed to choose for themselves—commonly! So much the better, perhaps."
"When they are, they often make a mess of it."
"You're right there! But this isn't choosing. It just—has to be!" She was obliged to haul out the big pocket-handkerchief, since those two little tarns were growing bigger, and threatened to give birth to rivulets. "Leaving Jean, you know—and all! But there! What has to be, has to be. Rose Collier is no more good than an infant. Can't think what business such people have to marry! I've got to go, though—of course."