IT WAS ENDLESSLY WEARISOME.
Day after day we steamed, and night after night were still where we began—in the centre of the sea, no farther from our starting-point, no nearer to our goal, yet for ever steaming. It was endlessly wearisome; who could say what might be happening meanwhile in England?
At last, after months, as it seemed, of this slow torture, we reached Vancouver. There, in the raw new town, a telegram awaited me. 'Glad to hear you are coming. Make all haste. You may be just in time to arrive for the trial.'
Just in time! I would not waste a moment. I caught the first train on the Canadian Pacific, and travelled straight through, day and night, to Montreal and Quebec, without one hour's interval.
I cannot describe to you that journey across a continent I had never before seen. It was endless and hopeless. I only know that we crawled up the Rocky Mountains and the Selkirk Range, over spider-like viaducts, with interminable effort, and that the prairies were just the broad Pacific over again. They rolled on for ever. But we did reach Quebec—in time we reached it; and we caught by an hour the first liner to Liverpool.
At Prince's Landing-stage another telegram awaited me. 'Come on at once. Case now proceeding. Harold is in court. We need your evidence.—Georgina Fawley.'
I might still be in time to vindicate Harold's character.
At Euston, to my surprise, I was met not only by my dear cantankerous old lady, but also by my friend, the magnificent Maharajah, dressed this time in a frock-coat and silk hat of Bond Street glossiness.
'What has brought you to England?' I asked, astonished. 'The Jubilee?'