Marchmont followed the direction he indicated, and saw two figures stealing round the corner of the palace, carrying hand-bags and showing every sign of watchfulness and suspicion. Having ascertained that the lawn was clear, they slipped rapidly across it, and, putting themselves in the protecting shade of a clump of bushes, turned into the high-road and disappeared. It had needed no second glance to identify them as his Lordship and Miss Arminster.
"By Jove!" gasped the journalist. "It is true, then! This will be a scoop of scoops! Come, we've got to run for it. We must take the same train, and they mustn't see us."
Some one else had witnessed the departure, in spite of all the precautions of the fugitives, and that person was Miss Matilda, who, from the vantage of an upper window, caught a glimpse of them just as they disappeared through the gate. Unwilling at first to believe her senses, she rushed to her brother's room and then to Miss Arminster's. Alas! in each apartment the traces of hasty packing and missing hand-luggage gave damning evidence of the fact. She rushed downstairs, bursting with her dreadful intelligence. In the hall she met Cecil, delightedly waving a telegram in his hand.
"Hurrah! Aunt Matilda!" he shouted. "Such news! 'The Purple Kangaroo' has reached its twentieth edition, and a truce is declared between the United States and Spain! Where are the others? I must tell them that the war is over."
"Bother your war!" exclaimed his aunt. "Do you know that your father and that shameless minx, Miss Arminster, have just eloped?"
CHAPTER IV.
IN WHICH THE BISHOP IS ABDUCTED.
All the way from Blanford to Dullhampton the Bishop was in the best of spirits, much on the principle of a naughty boy who, having played truant, means to enjoy his holiday to the full, well knowing that he will be caned when it is over. Indeed his Lordship became positively skittish, and Miss Arminster was obliged to squelch him a little, as that young lady, for excellent reasons of her own, had no more intention of becoming the mistress of Blanford than she had of wedding the author of "The Purple Kangaroo." On the other hand, she realised that it was one of the old gentleman's very rare treats, and she wanted him to have as good a time as possible; besides which, she had always longed to take a cruise on a steam-yacht, and now her ambition was about to be gratified.
The shock of disappointment was therefore all the greater when, on their arrival at Dullhampton, they were met by the captain, who informed them that Lord Downton had had a bad fall the day before and seriously sprained his ankle, so that the party had been given up. He had sent the yacht on, however, with the request that the Bishop would consider it at his disposal for the remainder of the week.