"Gone?" echoed Marjory in amazement.
To her it seemed incredible that he should be gone—strange perhaps to Adela, but to her incredible.
"Yes, this morning. He got a letter—something about his Company—and he was off on the spot. And Tom—Mr. Loring (he's come, you know), thinks—that that really was his reason, you know."
Marjory listened with wide-open eyes.
"Oh, Adela!" she said at last with a sort of shudder.
She could have believed it of no other man; she could hardly believe it of one who now seemed to her hardly a man.
"Isn't it splendid? And he went off without seeing—without going up to the cliff at all. I never was so delighted in my life."
Marjory was silent. No delight showed on her face; the time for that was gone. She did not understand, and she was thinking of the night's experience and wondering if Maggie Dennison had known that he was going. No, she could not have known.
"But what did you want with me, or with Bessie?" asked Adela.
Marjory hesitated. The departure of Willie Ruston made a difference. She prayed that it meant an utter difference. There was a chance; and while there was a chance her place was in the villa on the cliff. His going rekindled the spark of hope that almost had died in the last terrible night.