But she told him all. "You were just in time, Pip," she concluded. "I was just going to faint, I think."
She looked up at him with shining eyes. Pip saw them, and permitted himself one brief gaze. This was no time for tender passages. He put his hand in his pocket and produced a rather crumpled envelope.
"Would you mind giving that to the Squire for me?" he said. "I have to go away."
"Go away? Oh, Pip! Now?"
"Yes, you see, I have just—"
"But are you going to leave me in the house with that man?" cried Elsie, with a sudden access of her old terror.
"If I am any judge of human nature," said Pip, "he is out of the house by this time. I don't think he will even wait for his luggage. He—he's not very presentable. I see the trap has come round for him. It can take me instead, and I'll cart his luggage up to town and leave it at his club. I owe him some consideration," he added, surveying his knuckles thoughtfully.
Elsie acquiesced.
"Yes, that will be best," she said. "The Chells will think he went off in the ordinary way, and nobody will ever know—Pip, it was awful."
She broke off, and shuddered again and again.