His words were brief, but he was quite quiet and business-like. He kissed his daughter affectionately, told her to go to bed at once, and soon after left the house.
Valentine gave directions for the morning and went back to her room. She got quickly into bed, for she was determined to be well rested for what lay before her on the following day. She laid her head on the pillow, closed her eyes, and prepared to go to sleep. Does not everybody know what happens on these occasions? Does not each individual who in his or her turn has especially desired for the best and most excellent reason a long sleep, a deep sleep, an unbroken and dreamless sleep found it recede further and further away—found eyes more watchful—brain more active, limbs more restless, as the precious moments fly by? How loud the watch ticks, how audible are the minutest sounds!
It was thus with Valentine Wyndham that night. No sleep came near her, and by slow degrees as the fire grew faint and the night deepened in silence and solemnity, her happy excitement, her childish joy, gave place to vague apprehensions. All kinds of nameless terrors came over her. Suppose an accident happened to the train? Suppose the Esperance sailed before its time? Above all, and this idea was agonizing, was so repellant that she absolutely pushed it from her—suppose her father was deceiving her. She was horrified as this thought came, and came. It would come, it would not be banished. Suppose her father was deceiving her?
She went over in the silence of the night the whole scene of that evening. Her own sudden and fierce resolve, her father's opposition, his disappointment—then his sudden yielding. The more she thought, the more apprehensive she grew; the more she pondered, the longer, the more real grew her fears. At last she could bear them no longer.
She lit a candle and looked at her watch. Three o'clock. Had ever passed a night so long and dreadful? There would not be even a ray of daylight for some time. She could not endure that hot and restless pillow. She would get up and dress.
All the time she was putting on her clothes the dread that her father was deceiving her kept strengthening—strengthening. At last it almost reached a panic. What a fool she had been not to go to Southampton the night before. Suppose Gerald's ship sailed before she reached it or him.
Suddenly an idea came like a ray of light. Why should she wait for her father? Why should she not take an earlier train to Southampton? The relative depths of Valentine's two loves were clearly shown when she did not reject this thought. It mattered nothing at all to her at this supreme moment whether she offended her father or not. She determined to go to Southampton by the first train that left Waterloo that morning. She ran downstairs, found a time-table, saw that a train left at 5.50, and resolved to catch it. She would take Suzanne with her, and leave a message for her father; he could follow by the 8.5 train if he liked.
She went upstairs and woke her maid.
"Suzanne, get up at once. Dress yourself, and come to me, to my room."
In an incredible short time Suzanne had obeyed this mandate.