“Yes, but it does matter,” she said. “There may be some mistake—there is, there must be! It is useless to ask you to remain here, I feel that. Go to London, Cecil, and go to the offices of the Orion. Go and see if her name is on the passenger list. I will stake my faith in the honor and truth of my sex that it is not!”
He seized her hand and pressed it again.
“How can I thank you?” he breathed. “Yes! Ah, what woman’s wit will do! I will go to the office!”
“And you will let me know? You will not forget—your friend!”
“I shall never forget all you have done, all you have been to me this day, Lady Grace,” he said, fervently; and with a grave solemnity that might well have become one of the old knightly Stoyles whose pictures looked down on them, he raised her hand to his lips.
A deep red suffused Lady Grace’s face, and she drew a quick, sharp breath.
“Go, then!” she said, her hand resting on his clingingly, “and come back with good news!”
He nodded, and with the letter in his hand, ran down the stairs. Lady Grace leaned over the balustrade and looked at him, her heart beating wildly, her eyes flashing with suppressed excitement. She looked at that moment like one
Whose soul and brain with keen desire,
Burnt in a flame of all-consuming fire.