"Thank the Lord, Hetty, say I, for the five day boats," he was saying.
"You should not have come, Brandon," she cried softly, and the look of misery in her eyes was tinged with a glow she could not suppress. "It only makes everything harder for me. I—I—Oh, I wish you had not come!"
"But isn't it wonderful?" he cried, "that I should be here and waiting for you! It is almost inconceivable. And you were in the act of running away from me, too. Oh, I have that much of the tale from Sara, so don't look so hurt about it."
"I am so sorry you came," she repeated, her lip trembling.
Noting her emotion, he gave her hands a fierce, encouraging pressure and immediately released them.
"Come," he said gently; "I have booked for London. Everything is arranged. I shall see to your luggage. Let me put you in the carriage first."
As she sat in the railway carriage, waiting for him to return, she tried in a hundred ways to devise a means of escape, and yet she had never loved him so much as now. Her heart was sore, her desolation never so complete as now.
He came back at last and took his seat beside her in the compartment, fanning himself with his hat. The maid very discreetly stared out of the window at the hurrying throng of travellers on the platform. One other person occupied the compartment with them, a crabbed Englishman who seemed to resent the fact that his seat was not next the window, and that maids should be encouraged to travel first class.
"Isn't it really wonderful?" whispered Booth once more, quite as if he couldn't believe it himself. She smiled rather doubtfully. He was sitting quite close to her and leaning forward.
The Englishman got up and went into the corridor to consult the conductor. One might have heard him say he'd very much prefer going into another compartment where it wouldn't be necessary for him to annoy a beastly American bride and groom—her maid and perhaps later on his man—all the way up to London.