"Live-a-pool, is it? More like Die-a-pool!" grumbled old Katie, as she assisted her lady to change her traveling dress for a loose wrapper.
"Now, what have you had to eat, my ladyship?"
"Nothing, Katie. I felt as if I could not eat anything cooked in this ill-looking house."
"Nothing to eat! I'll go right straight downstairs and make you some tea and toast myself," said Katie.
And she made good her words by bringing a delicate little repast, of which Claudia gratefully partook.
And then Katie, with an old nurse's tenderness, saw her mistress comfortably to bed, and cleared and darkened the room and left her to repose.
But Claudia did not sleep. Her thoughts were too busy with the subject of Lord Vincent's strange conduct from the time that he had at Niagara received those three suspicious letters up to this time, when with his face hid he was walking up and down the streets of Liverpool.
That he sought concealment she felt assured by many circumstances: his coming to this obscure tavern; his choosing to take his meals and smoke his pipe in his bedroom; and his walking out with his face muffled—all of which was in direct antagonism to Lord Vincent's fastidious habits; and, finally, his taking a whole carriage in the railway train, for no other purpose than to have himself and his party entirely isolated from their fellow-passengers.
Lord Vincent came in early, and, thanks to the narcotic qualities of the ale, he soon fell asleep.
Claudia had scarcely dropped into a doze before, at the dismal hour of three o'clock in the morning, they were roused up to get ready for the train. They made a hurried toilet and ate a hasty breakfast, and then set out for the station.