“Go, Miss Taverner,” he said quietly.
Miss Taverner, recognizing the note of finality in his voice, obeyed him.
She found that a chaise-and-four, with the Earl’s crest on the panels, was waiting for her outside the cottage. She got into it, and sank back against the cushions. It moved forward, and closing her eyes, Miss Taverner gave herself up to reflection. The events of the past hours, the shock of finding her cousin to be a villain, could not soon be recovered from. The drive to Brighton, which had seemed so interminable earlier in the day, was now too short to allow her sufficient time to compose her thoughts. These were in confusion; it would be many hours before she could be calm again, many hours before her mind would be capable of receiving other and happier impressions.
The chaise bore her smoothly to Brighton, and she found Peregrine awaiting her in Marine Parade. She threw herself into his arms, her overcharged spirits finding relief in a burst of tears. “Oh, Perry, Perry, how brown you look!” she sobbed.
“Well, there is nothing to cry about in that, is there?” asked Peregrine, considerably surprised.
“No, oh no!” wept Miss Taverner, laying her cheek against his shoulder. “It is only that I am so thankful!”
Chapter XXIII
If Miss Taverner expected to find her brother indignant at the treatment he had undergone she was soon informed of her mistake. He had had a capital time.
“Nothing could be like it!” he told her over and over again. “I must have a yacht of my own. If Worth won’t consent to it it will be the greatest shame imaginable! I am persuaded Harriet would like it above all things. I wish Worth had come here to-night, I cannot conceive why he should not. Evans—he is Worth’s captain, you know: a first-rate fellow!—Evans says I have a great aptitude. Never in the least sick—and we ran into a pretty groundswell on Tuesday, I can tell you! But it made no odds to me, never felt better in my life!”
“But Perry, when you awoke from that drug, were you not sadly alarmed?”