She drew back quickly, as the rest of the party came hurrying to the carriage.
And so the good-byes had all been said, and the train had steamed out of the station; she had watched the platform melt into obscurity, and then had dropped into her seat with that sense of quiet—of flatness—that follows the moments of parting.
The long railway journey and the night crossing to Ireland still lay between her and action. She looked impatiently at her travelling companions, an uninteresting brother and sister who had already buried themselves behind newspapers in their respective corners of the carriage, and almost angrily she turned to the heap of magazines lying beside her; but as she did so, her glance brightened. Nance's letter was still to be read!
In the midst of her perplexities, a tender thought flashed over her mind as she opened the envelope, and her face softened instinctively as she began to read. But gradually, as her glance passed from one line to another, her expression changed, she sat upright in her seat, her bearing altered in a sudden, inexplicable manner.
"Darling, darling Clo!" the letter began,
"I must have seemed a wretch last night and to-day! I mean I must have seemed very strange, showing hardly any surprise or sympathy at anything you told me, and taking your going to Ireland as though it were a thing that happened every day. But, Clo, it wasn't because I didn't love and worship you, and feel for you in every tiny thing, but because I was afraid you would guess what was really in my mind—what I was plotting and planning all the time.
"Clo, I wanted you to go to Ireland because—oh, do forgive me for even writing it!—I wanted to get you away.
"Dearest, you are to do no more silly things. At the risk of hurting you, I am saying this. You used to say long ago that I saw more than you, because I looked on instead of doing things myself. Clo, you are not to raise money on Orristown, because you have no need to do it. Lord Deerehurst has been paid his thousand pounds and you are free—quite free.
"My little sister, imagine that my arms are round your neck so tight that you can't be vexed! When you told me last night that my thousand pounds really belonged to him, my first thought was to say—'Well, let's give him back as much of it as we have left!' But I stopped in time. You were not in the mood last night to take the most loving favour in the world. You wanted to sacrifice yourself; so instead of saying what was in my heart, I locked it up closely and thought about it all night; and before you were awake this morning, I sent for Pierce and asked him to lend me three hundred pounds—the three hundred we had spent out of the thousand.
"Don't say anything, darling! Don't be angry! Don't even think! Pierce was perfectly sweet; he never asked one question, and at three o'clock to-day, just after we came back from lunch, I sent the thousand pounds in notes to Carlton House Terrace, with a card of yours enclosed.