"My dear, how can I tell?" he asked helplessly.
"They are eloping, John; that is what it is. Juliet is just the girl to do such a thing, and you must go after them and stop her. It is your duty as her clergyman. Quick, John! They went this way, through that door."
"That is all very well, my dear; but I should like to know what chance there is of finding anyone in this crowd," he said testily, as he looked in the opposite direction to that she indicated. There had been much to try his patience in his continental journeyings with his wife and daughters, and it was beginning to feel the strain.
"I tell you they went out of the station. There is no crowd outside. Do go and look after them."
"And meanwhile miss my train! It will start as soon as the luggage is in. How do you know that Juliet is not staying at Dover with her mother and sisters? They talked of going to the seaside. But do come along now, or you will miss your chance of a comfortable place."
Mrs. Hayes shook her head in a way which said that she knew better than he. His last suggestion, however, struck her as good, seeing that it was evident that the compartments of the train were rapidly filling. She did not speak again till they were settled, with their belongings, in one of the carriages, and she had counted the packages and assured herself that nothing was missing. Then she remarked solemnly, as she looked round on her husband and daughters, "I always said that that girl would come to no good. It is a mystery to me that Providence should suffer such a one to have so much money."
The interval ere the hour came at which the boat started for Calais seemed long and tedious to both Juliet and Algernon. She was far from suspecting how terribly to him the time seemed to lag. She had no knowledge that could give her the least idea of the nature of the dread that oppressed him, and caused him to shrink from every eye that looked at him with penetration in its glance, and to long for the darkness that might shield him from detection. She did not notice the nervous starts he gave from time to time at the sound of a voice or a step. Her own inner consciousness was too painfully absorbing for her to be very observant of him. She was not aware of any diminution of the lover-like devotion Algernon was wont to display towards her, though he felt he was playing his part badly, and lapsing into fits of absentmindedness which ill became the situation.
Once Juliet broke down, and declared that she could not go on with it. She would return home by the next train and confess all to her mother. He had difficulty in soothing her agitation and bending her will again to his, but he persuaded her that it was too late to go back. The irrevocable step was taken.
"To-morrow you shall write to your mother," he said. "She will forgive us when she knows there is nothing else to be done."
And she suffered him to lead her on to the deck of the steamer.