"Lord bless me!" cried Mr. Bragg. "Why, you're starving! That's what it is, then!"
In his anxious solicitude for her Mr. Bragg would have ordered everything eatable to be brought which the refreshment-room afforded. But he yielded to May's entreaty that she might have a cup of tea and a piece of bread. The attendant suggested a teaspoonful of brandy in the tea, but at this May shook her head. Mr. Bragg, however, thought the suggestion a good one, and producing a small flask from his travelling bag, insisted on pouring a few drops of its contents into the cup of tea.
"That's fine old Cognac," he said; "like a cordial. I wouldn't ask you to swallow the stuff they sell here; but this'll do you nothing but good. Dear me, if I'd only thought of giving you some of this before!"
He was quite self-reproachful, and May had some difficulty in persuading him that no blame could possibly attach to him for not having administered a dose of brandy to her as soon as they met in the railway carriage.
By this time the doctor sent for from Wendhurst had arrived. A brief interview with his patient convinced him that she was perfectly well able to travel on as far as Oldchester.
"Rather delicate nervous organization, you see," said the doctor to Mr. Bragg, when he left May. "And there has been some mental distress; family troubles, she tells me; and then the long fast, and the journey, quite sufficient to account—oh, thanks, thanks. She'll be all right after a good night's rest, I haven't the least doubt." And the doctor withdrew with a bow; for Mr. Bragg, apologizing for having disturbed him and brought him so far through the rain, had put a handsome fee into his hand.
Mr. Bragg had also mentioned in the hearing of the waiting-room attendant, who was hovering inquisitively in the background, that the young lady had been put under his charge, and that he had just left the house of her great-uncle, Lord Castlecombe. He was aware that he himself was far too well-known a man in those parts for the adventure not to be talked about. And his experience of life had taught him that, while it is as difficult to check gossip as to bring a runaway horse to a standstill, yet that both may generally be turned to the right or left, by a cool hand.
His sagacity was amply justified. For the waiting-room attendant, for weeks afterwards, would narrate to passing lady travellers how that sweet young lady, Lord Castlecombe's grandniece, was so cut up by the death of her cousin that she fainted right away coming back from the funeral at Combe Park, not having been able to touch food for more than twelve hours in consequence of her grief; and how Mr. Bragg, the great Oldchester manufacturer, who was taking charge of the young lady on her journey home, was so kind and anxious, and quite like a father to her; and how they both repeatedly said, "Mrs. Tupp, if it hadn't been for your care and attention, we don't know whatever we should have done."
Soon after the doctor had departed, Mr. Bragg came back to May, and informed her that arrangements had been made for their starting for Oldchester in three-quarters of an hour, if that would be agreeable to her. And in reply to her wondering inquiry as to how that could have been managed, he said quietly, "Oh, I've got a special train. I'm a director of this line, and they know me here pretty well."
May had always understood that a special train was an immensely costly matter. But in her ignorance she was by no means sure that it might not be part of the privileges of a railway director to have special trains run for his service gratis, whensoever he should require them. Which, probably, was precisely what Mr. Bragg desired her to suppose.