"Yes, as far as to Ghent. Where do you go from. there?"
"Oh, Tournay - Mons! All the fortifications. I shall be away for about a week, I suppose."
Both men had left the house when Judith came down to breakfast next morning. She sat down at the table. with only The British and Continental Herald to bear her company, and was engaged in perusing the columns of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, when the butler came in to announce the Lady Barbara Childe.
Judith looked up in surprise; she supposed Lade Barbara to be in the salon, but before she could speak - that tempestuous beauty had brushed past the butler into the room.
She was dressed in a walking costume, and carried a huge chinchilla muff. She looked pale, and her eyes seemed overbright to Judith. She glanced round the room, and said abruptly: "Charles! I want to see him!"
Judith rose, and came forward. "How do you do?" she said. "I am sorry, but my brother has already left for Ghent. I hope it is nothing urgent?"
Barbara exclaimed: "Oh, confound it! I wanted to see him! I overslept - it's those curst drops!"
Her petulance, the violence of the language she used, did nothing to advance her claims to Judith's kindness. "I am sorry. Pray will you not be seated?"
"Oh no! There's no use in my staying!" Barbara replied dejectedly. Her mouth drooped; her eyes were emptied of light; she stood swinging her muff, apparently lost in her own brooding thoughts. Suddenly she looked at Judith, and laughed. "Oh, heavens! what did I say? You are certainly offended!"
Judith at once disclaimed. Barbara said, with her air of disarming candour: "I am sorry! Only I did wish to see Charles before he left, and I am always cross when I don't get what I want."