Outside, the Duchess’s chaise was being driven round to the stables, and a huge, lumbering coach, piled high with baggage, was standing under her window. The driver had mounted the box, but was leaning over to speak to a fat gentleman carrying a cloak-bag and a heavy coat. Miss Challoner started up, looked more closely at the coach, and ran to the door.
One of the abigails who had lately had her ear glued to the parlour door, was crossing the upper landing. Miss Challoner called to her to know what was the coach at the door. The abigail stared, and said she supposed it would be the diligence from Nice.
“Where does it go?” Miss Challoner asked, trembling with suppressed anxiety.
“Why, to Paris, bien sûr, madame,” replied the girl, and was surprised to see Miss Challoner dart back into her room. She emerged again in a few moments, her cloak caught hastily round her, her reticule, stuffed with her few belongings, on her arm, and hastened downstairs.
No one was in the coffee-room, and she went across it to the front door. The guard of the diligence had just swung himself up into his place, but when he saw Miss Challoner hailing him, he came down again, and asked her very civilly what she desired.
She desired a place in the coach. He ran an appraising eye over her as he said that this could be arranged, and asked whither she was bound.
“How much money is needed for me to travel as far as Paris?” Miss Challoner inquired, colouring faintly.
He named a sum which she knew to be beyond her slender means. Swallowing her pride, she told him what money she had at her disposal, and asked how far she could travel with it. The guard named, rather brutally, Pont-de-Moine, a town some twenty-five miles distant from Dijon. He added that she would have enough left in her purse to pay for a night’s lodging. She thanked him, and since at the moment she did not care where she went as long as she could escape from Dijon, she said that she would journey as far as Pont-de-Moine.
“We shall arrive before ten,” said the guard, apparently thinking this a matter for congratulation.
“Good heavens, not till ten o’clock?” exclaimed Miss Challoner, aghast at such slow progress.