“Yes, she’s been down there for the last three weeks.”
“May I know her address? I’m going down myself in a day or two, and perhaps I might venture to call?” said Gerard.
Lady Jennings caught at the suggestion, and at once seizing a piece of paper from her writing-table, wrote down on it, with her gold-cased pencil, an address on the sea-front, where she said that Mrs. Davison was now living in rooms.
She seemed quite eager to give him the address, and begged him to call again upon her when he returned to town, and to tell her how Rachel was, and her mother, and when the girl proposed to return to her.
“Tell Rachel,” she said, “that she’s a naughty girl not to answer my letters, and that I am getting into a dreadful muddle with my own correspondence for want of her help.”
Gerard rose, much pleased to have received this general invitation to call when he liked, but went away puzzled and vaguely uneasy.
Lady Jennings, he thought, was quite anxious for him to go to Brighton to see Rachel.
What new surprise would he find in store for him there?
CHAPTER IV
Gerard had made up his mind about the Brighton expedition even while he was talking to Lady Jennings. He was full of conflicting thoughts, hopes, and fears.