Kate winced. She had registered under a false name, hoping thus to escape notoriety. Now she saw the folly of any such hope. From the first, no detail of her unfortunate romance had escaped notoriety.
"Let the reporters come up," she sighed. "Perhaps if I speak to them now they will let us alone afterwards."
She was speaking to them, when she heard in the street outside the familiar, crisp trot of the colts from Storm. Her voice broke off in the middle of a sentence, and the two reporters, exchanging glances, tactfully withdrew.
Kate was suddenly very weak in the knees. She stood by the window for a moment, clinging to the curtains, with closed eyes. "I must be prepared for changes," she said to herself. "It is many years, many years—"
She opened her eyes and looked down. Philip had alighted, throwing the lines to a porter. As he crossed the sidewalk, he glanced up at her window and she saw his face. No one followed him.
She met him at the head of the stairs. "Where is he, Philip?" Her voice was very quiet.
"Gone."
He led her into the room, closing the door in the faces of the eager reporters.
"Father caught a train that went through Frankfort just after dawn," he said tonelessly.
She cried out. "Just after dawn!" It was the hour of her vision. "He did not get our letters, then? He did not know that we were coming to take him home? There was some mistake!"