“Yes! no! my head aches—only let us get away!” was the reply.
“But some one told me that Mr. Coverdale had arrived; where is he?—you will wait for him?” returned Kate, alarmed and surprised at Alice’s unwonted agitation.
“He will come when he likes; he—has found some friends of his, I believe,” murmured Alice. “Only let us get away!” she added, in so imploring a tone that Kate, convinced some contre-temps had occurred, dispatched Mr. Crane in search of Miss Crofton, and, taking leave of Lady Tattersall Trottemout (who thinking they had resolved to spend the night there, naturally deplored their “running away so early”), repaired to the cloakroom. Here the others, including Harry Coverdale, joined them, and in another quarter of an hour they were safely housed in Park Lane.
Thus ended Lady Tattersall Trottemout’s soirée dansante; but its consequences continued to influence the lives of those whoso fortunes we are tracing, for many a long year.
Nothing passed between Coverdale and Alice in reference to the scenes we have just described until the next morning, when, before they went down to breakfast, Harry observed abruptly, “Alice, it is my particular wish that you should go down to the Park to-day: can you be ready to start by the four o’clock train?”
“Yes,” was the unexpectedly acquiescent reply; then, after a moment’s pause, “What reason am I to give Kate for leaving her so suddenly?”
Astonished at such a ready consent where he had expected strong opposition, if not an actual refusal to comply with his desire, Harry looked steadfastly at his wife, but her face was turned away, so that he could not read its expression. “My true reason I will explain to you at some time when we can talk the matter over coolly and quietly,” was the reply; “the reason I wish you to give your cousin—which is a good, true, and sufficient reason in itself, although not the only one by which I am actuated—is, that your sister Emily has received an invitation to stay with a friend of hers, which Mrs. Hazlehurst is anxious she should accept, thinking she requires change; but Emily very properly refused to leave her mother. I dined there the day before yesterday, and hearing of the dilemma, proposed that you should take Emily’s place for a fortnight or three weeks—I was not wrong in making such an offer, was I?”
“No; I shall be very glad to see and be of use to dear mamma,” was the reply.
“I should have told you all this last night,” continued Coverdale, “but for reasons I will not enter upon at present.”
He waited for some comment on his speech, but he waited in vain; Alice continued to add the finishing touches to her toilet, until, being completely equipped, she quietly observed, “It is time to go down, I think; the breakfast bell will ring directly;” and, suiting the action to the word, she departed, leaving her husband to follow when he pleased. Kate was surprised to hear of their sudden determination to leave town, and sorry to part with them; but their reason for so doing was such a plausible one, that she could urge nothing against it. She saw that there was something more—that neither Harry nor his wife were at their ease; but Alice kept her own counsel so closely that all Kate’s endeavours to win her confidence were futile, and she was obliged to content herself by supposing that it was a mere matrimonial breeze which would blow over, as such affairs usually do, without any very serious consequences resulting from it.