Harry shuddered, and turned away to snatch his portmonnaie from his pocket and count its contents.
“You had better stay here,” he said.
“No, no! I must go with you. I want—I want to be with you. If anything were to happen—if he committed any rash act, I should feel that his blood was upon my head. Come!” she said, eagerly, and with a strange look in her eyes. “Come! there is no time to lose. I want—I want to be on the way.”
By consulting Bradshaw, Harry found that they might reach Newhaven before the boat started; perhaps catch the very train by which Richard Pellet travelled, though the probability was that they would find him to have an hour’s start of them, but by a slow train—that is, if he had gone at all, which Harry was sometimes disposed to doubt. But then he had taken luggage, and had written a direction, so the man said; and in corroboration he brought a blotting-pad, and part of a book of adhesive luggage labels, one of which was written upon; but, perhaps from want of legibility, smeared hastily over. But there, plain enough to read, was the address—“R. Pellet, Hotel Laroche, R—.”
That was all. Where would “R” be? Some Rue in Paris, Harry thought; when his eyes fell upon the blotting-pad—one that had hardly been used, but upon which, in reverse, he could now make out the same address, left by another label that had been blotted upon it. “R. Pellet” was perfectly plain; and then, with a little puzzling, he made out the rest,—“Hotel Laroche, Rouen.”
“Can we have the brougham?” said Harry, for he was now satisfied.
“D’reckly, sir,” answered the man. But “d’reckly” proved to be a full half-hour afterwards, when, just as Harry was about to set off on foot for the station, the brougham came round to the door, and they stepped in.
“Station—quick!” said Harry.
The man drove quickly; but they were only in time to see one train glide away through the darkness, leaving them waiting impatiently for the next.
Fortunately for the travellers, the trains succeeded each other very rapidly, and getting out at London Bridge, they had just time to cross over and reach the express as the last bell rang, hurrying into a carriage and giving vent to a sigh of relief as they felt it glide away into the outer darkness.