Everybody was immersed in the horrors of “packing up,” and it was impossible to go upstairs without encountering people staggering under the burden of a heap of things which would have been better left behind. Even the authority of Mr. Rose, who disliked the daily routine to be disturbed, failed to get any meal eaten at the proper time, or without unnecessary hurry.
Even the fact that Mr. Rose’s old friend Mrs. Haybrow was expected on a short visit before the migration, failed to check the fury of the packers. It was unfortunate that she should come at such a time, certainly. But Mrs. Rose reckoned on inflaming her friend’s mind with her own zeal, and inwardly proposed orgies of competitive trunk-filling to while away the visitor’s time.
Mrs. Rose secretly hoped, too, that Mrs. Haybrow, through her connections at Todcaster, would be able to furnish her husband with proofs that Mrs. Dale was not a person to be encouraged. It was not yet too late to put off Mrs. Dale, although Mr. Rose had called upon that person to thank her for the invitation to his daughter and to accept it.
It was the day of Mrs. Haybrow’s expected arrival, and Mr. and Mrs. Rose had driven to the station to meet her. Mabin, wondering whether the visitor, whom she had not seen since she was a child, would be “nice,” was hobbling along the garden path, rather painfully indeed, but at last without a crutch, when she heard a great rustling of the branches of the lilac bushes which grew close under the wall.
And then, above the wall, she saw the face of Rudolph.
“Oh!” cried Mabin, with a little fluttering of the heart. “I—I thought you had gone back to your ship!”
“Why, so I had,” replied Rudolph, raising himself so that she had a view of his shoulders as well as of his head. “But I’ve come back again, you see.”
“I can guess what brought you!” said Mabin, wishing the next moment that she had not uttered the words.
Rudolph took her up quickly.
“Can you? Well then, what was it?”