He smiled as he drew forth his watch.
“It is half-past nine now,” he said. “We have only time to get comfortably down to the station.”
Ella rose and left the room, to return in a few minutes ready to continue the journey; but during her absence, Max had placed a letter in the waiter’s hand, with an accompanying half-sovereign.
“To be posted in a week’s time,” were the instructions.
“More wrecks down in the bay,” said Max, as Ella re-entered the room. “It has been a sad winter!”
“Let us—let us—hasten on,” she said with an effort; and leading her out, they were soon in the station, and secured their seats in an empty compartment, where Ella took her place by the window, to gaze abstractedly out at the damp sodden landscape for quite an hour.
“Have we far to go now?” she asked of Max, who sat watching her.
“Not much farther,” he said.
And again she asked that question at the end of an hour, and of another hour, but always to receive the same answer.
“Is it not less than a hundred miles from Plymouth to Penzance?” she at length asked uneasily.