Your ever affectionate
Terry.
"I'm sorry." It was Lady Dawn.
He shook himself. He was so raw that even her sympathy almost wounded. "Don't pity me. It's she we've got to help. What's to be done?"
"Done! I haven't thought. What can we——"
"We can follow her and bring her back. We've got to—and we haven't much time. You must have read between the lines what her letter meant. After having turned Braithwaite down, she's gone off to beg him to elope with her. When a girl puts herself at a man's mercy like that, there's no knowing how he'll act. The chances are that, whatever he does, it won't be honorable. We're got to prevent her, not
only for her own sake, but for his sake as well. He's just started on a great career; if this story leaks out, he'll be smashed. They'll both be smashed, for that matter. If she'd give him time to marry her honestly, it wouldn't matter whether her family had consented. But she doesn't intend to—that's why she's asked us to keep quiet for twenty-four hours. What we've got to do is not to stop her from marrying him—no one cares about that; but to catch her before she runs off with him."
"But we don't know where——"
"No, we don't." He spoke rapidly. "But we can find out. Ann can tell us. Ann's a maid in my house; she was practically engaged to him when he was my valet. Now that I look back, I'm sure she's known everything from the start and has seen this coming. We can get Braithwaite's address from her; when we know that, we shall have laid our hands on Terry."
While he had been speaking, Lady Dawn had been rummaging through her desk. He went and bent over her, his hands on her shoulders. She was fingering a time-table. She looked up at him with her head leant back. "There's no train—nothing that will reach London till morning."