She was a little annoyed at her nonsuccess in prevailing with him, and bade him but a cold farewell. He either would not or did not notice this, but insisted on accompanying them to the railway station, at which, owing to Mrs. Blunden’s impatience, they arrived nearly half an hour before the train was due.
While the boys wandered about the platform, plying Aunt Margaret with questions, and Mrs. Wilson overlooked the labeling of the luggage, Florence retreated to the waiting room. Here Mr. Aylwinne found her.
“Don’t let me disturb you, Miss Heriton; I have only come to say good-by, and to ask you if there is anything I can do for you in London, where I purpose going to-morrow?”
She said no, and thanked him coldly, but still he lingered.
“I do not wish to force myself into your confidence, yet between old friends like you and me a little license may be permitted. Give me leave to speak freely, will you?”
“I do not know what you can mean,” said Florence, surprised at this preamble.
“Indeed! Then perhaps I am premature—perhaps you do not know. But there is, or, rather, was, a report in one of the daily papers that I fancied you would wish to hear confirmed or contradicted.”
Florence grew crimson with mortification. Even if he guessed the jealous regret she had been nourishing, it was indelicate of him thus to allude to it.
“I have heard all I wish to hear,” she exclaimed, and hurried toward her aunt, who now called out that the train was in sight.
“I have looked my last on Orwell Court,” thought Florence when they were actually on their journey, “perhaps on its master; nor do I think that I would wish to see him again, even if a wish would bring him to my feet. If he has engaged himself to this young girl, how cruel to waver, to keep aloof, now that she is suffering! If the report be false, why torture me with glances and sighs that reveal his affection, even while he plainly says he cannot ask me to be his? I will never see him again if it be possible to avoid it, but persuade Aunt Margaret to travel—to take me somewhere out of the beaten track, where even his name cannot reach my ear, and it may be possible in time to forget him.”