There were not many travellers, and they had all disappeared before she had collected her luggage and made her way out into the dank chill of the station-yard where a rickety cab stood waiting.
She shivered afresh as she got into it. The dampness and the cold seemed to penetrate to her very bones. She sat huddled in a corner.
"Where to, miss?" The porter thrust a cheery face in upon her, and, albeit she was veiled, she shrank back with an instinctive desire to avoid recognition.
"The Anchor Hotel," she said, through teeth that chattered in spite of her.
She heard him give the order, and in a moment the ramshackle conveyance was on its way. They clattered forth over the stones into the clinging billows of mist.
The cold caught and pierced her anew as they neared the dreary front. She heard the muffled roar of the sea splashing dully against the wall. The mist became a wet drizzle beating in through the window. She tried to close it, but the strap was broken. She could only draw her wrap more closely about her.
The cab horse stumbled, and was dragged up by his driver with a curse. They were nearing the Anchor Hotel. She wished she had prepared her mother for her advent. She had not dared to do so in case--just in case--it should come to Jake's knowledge, though she believed that Jake must be well on his way to Liverpool by now, if he had not already arrived there. It was possible that he had not been able to leave at a moment's notice, and she had not dared to take the chance of any rumour of her coming reaching him. But now that she was so nearly at the end of her journey, she wished earnestly that her mother were expecting her. The thought of meeting Giles Sheppard, asking his hospitality, was hateful to her.
It would not be for more than that one night. Of that she was convinced. Charlie would be swift to answer her summons, if indeed he had returned to the Castle. But he was so erratic in all his ways that she had some doubt on this point. If he had not returned--! But she could not think of that possibility. She turned from it with a sick foreboding. Surely Fate could not play her so hideous a trick!
They lumbered on.
Suddenly the light from the swinging lamp that hung in the porch of "The Anchor" burst across their path. The horse stumbled again, recovered itself, jolted on a few yards, stopped. They had arrived.