"In my bed? Good heavens, Britton! What's to become of me?"
"Don't take it so 'ard, sir," he made haste to say. "Blatchford 'as fixed a place for you on the couch in your study, sir. It's all very snug, sir."
"But, Britton," I said in horror, "suppose that I should have come home last night. Don't you see?"
"I daresay she 'ad the door locked, sir," he said.
"By special train," I mumbled. A light broke in upon my reviving intellect. "Why, it was the train that went through at a mile a minute while we were in the coffee-house. No wonder we didn't meet her!"
"I shudder to think of wot would 'ave 'appened if we had, sir," said he, meaning no doubt to placate me. "Mr. Poopendyke says the Countess 'as been up all night worrying about you, sir. She has been distracted. She wanted 'im to go out and search for you at four o'clock this morning, but he says he assured 'er you'd turn up all right. He says Mrs.—the elderly lady, begging your pardon, sir,—thought she was doing for the best when she took a special. She wanted to save us all the trouble she could. He says she was very much distressed by our failure to 'ave some one meet her with a launch when she got here last night, sir. As it was, she didn't reach the castle until nearly one, and she looked like a drowned rat when she got there, being hex—exposed to a beastly rainstorm. See wot I mean? She went to bed in a dreadful state, he says, but he thinks she'll be more pleasant before the day is over."
I burst into a fit of laughter. "Hurray!" I shouted, exultantly. "So she was out in it too, eh? Well, by Jove, I don't feel half as badly as I did five minutes ago. Come! Let us be off."
We started briskly down the street. My spirits were beginning to rebound. Poopendyke had said that she worried all night about me! She had been distracted! Poor little woman! Still I was glad to know that she had the grace to sit up and worry instead of going to sleep as she might have done. I was just mean enough to be happy over it.
Poopendyke met us on the town side of the river. He seemed a trifle haggard, I thought. He was not slow, on the other hand, to announce in horror-struck tones that I looked like a ghost.
"You must get those wet clothes off at once, Mr. Smart, and go to bed with a hot water bottle and ten grains of quinine. You'll be very ill if you don't. Put a lot more elbow grease into those oars, Max. Get a move on you. Do you want Mr. Smart to die of pneumonia?"