“You had best go, my dear,” she said; “I have always thought that there was some mystery about this Mr. Levinger, and now I expect that it is coming out. If you take a cab at once, you will just have time to catch the twelve o’clock train at Liverpool Street.”
Joan nodded, and writing one word upon the prepaid answer “Coming,” gave it to the boy and ran upstairs to pack a few things in a bag. In ten minutes a hansom was at the door and she was ready to start. First she bade good-bye to the two invalids, who were much disturbed at this hurried departure; and then to Mrs. Bird, who followed her into the passage kissing her again and again.
“Do you know, Joan,” she said, beginning to cry, “I feel as if you were going away for good and I should never see you any more.”
“Nonsense, dear,” she answered briefly, for a queer contraction in her throat made a lengthened speech impossible, “I hope to be back in a day or two if all is well.”
“Yes, Joan—if all is well, and there’s hope for everybody. Well, good-bye, and God bless you wherever you go—God bless you here and hereafter, for ever and ever!”
Then Joan drove away, and as she went it came into her mind that it would be best if she returned no more. She had promised to join her husband in a few days. Why should she not do so at once, and thus avoid the pain of a formal parting with the Birds, her true and indeed her only friends?
By half-past four that afternoon the train pulled up at Bradmouth, where she must change into the light railway with tramcar carriages that runs for fifteen or twenty miles along the coast, Monk’s Vale being the second station from the junction.
The branch train did not start for ten minutes, and Joan employed the interval in walking up and down the platform, looking at the church tower, the roofs of the fishing village, the boats upon the beach, and the familiar view of land and sea. Everything seemed quite unchanged; she alone was changed, and felt as though a century of time had passed over her head since that morning when she ran away to London.
“Hullo, Joan Rock!” said a half-remembered voice at her elbow. “I’m in luck, it seems: I saw you off, and here I am to welcome you back. But you shouldn’t have married him, Joan; you should have waited for me as I told you. I’m in business for myself now, four saddle donkeys and a goat chaise, and doing grand. I shall die a rich man, you bet.”
Joan turned round to see a youth with impudent blue eyes and hair of flaming red, in whom she recognised Willie Hood, much elongated, but otherwise the same.