Several hours later Lady Agatha returning from a dinner party, very much out of temper because her hostess had stupidly given the rich American wife of an up-country baronet precedence over her, found a note skewered to her cushion with a big black-headed hat pin (Susan's device, borrowed from a shilling shocker).
"Aunt Agatha:" (she read) "I am going to America, and as I do not intend to return, you will have no further reason to regret my 'unfortunate influence' over your children.
"Please say good-by to Percy for me. He is a real Aubrey-Blythe, and I am sorry that I shall never see him again. But I shall not pretend that I am sorry to be leaving your house. You will be glad to be rid of me, I know; and I am equally glad of this opportunity of going away. So we are quits.
"You seemed to feel that I do not appreciate what you have done for me in the past. I think I have and do appreciate everything; I have thought of little else of late. And this has led quite directly to my present determination. Good-by, good-by!
"Jane Evelyn Aubrey-Blythe."
On the day following, the Hon. Wipplinger Towle was likewise the recipient of a communication, the contents of which he finally deciphered with difficulty. It was written on pink paper, strongly scented with cheap perfumery, and was fetched to his lodgings, so his man informed him, "by a very respectable appearin' pusson in blue an' scarlet livery."
"i sed as ow i wud leve yu no, sir, wen mis Jane Evelyn went away,"—he read—"shes gon to America, that is awl i no, sir, she went suddint, or i wud ave towld yu. if i ad munny i wud follo. if the shu fitz, put it awn. Susan Haythorne."
CHAPTER VI
The six days of the voyage passed uneventfully enough. Jane Blythe, obeying Mrs. Markle's instructions, spoke to no one, and although one or two women, muffled to their eyes in wraps, stared at her in sleepy curiosity from their steamer chairs, and an elderly man restored her head covering, which on one occasion escaped its moorings and blew across the deck, no one attempted to enter into conversation with her. Jane accepted this circumstance as she accepted everything else in her new and strange surroundings. She ate regularly, which could be said of very few of the other passengers, and slept soundly at night after long, delightful days spent on deck in the keen mid-ocean air, and with it all her thin face rounded into a lovely radiance of girlish bloom, which caused the retiring Mrs. Markle to exclaim in fretful amazement.