“Most unexpectedly detained. Cannot come to-night. Expect me with Mrs. Lovel to-morrow.”
This telegram made Miss Griselda very angry.
“What possible information can detain Mr. Baring when I summon him here?” she said to her younger sister. She was doomed, however, to be made yet more indignant. A third telegram arrived at Avonsyde early in the evening; it also was from Mr. Baring:
“Disquieting news. Put off your guests. Expect me early to-morrow.”
Miss Griselda’s face grew quite pale. She threw the thin sheet of paper indignantly on the floor.
“Mr. Baring strangely forgets himself,” she said. “Put off our guests! Certainly not!”
“But, Griselda,” said Miss Katharine, “our good friend speaks of disquieting news. It may be—it may be something about the little girls’ mother. Oh, I always did fear that something had happened to her.”
“Katharine, you are perfectly silly about that woman. But whatever Mr. Baring’s news, our guests are invited and they shall come. Katharine, I look on to-morrow as the most important day of my life. On that day, when I show our chosen and rightful heir to the world—for our expected guests form the world to us, Katharine—on that day I fulfill the conditions of my dear father’s will. Do you suppose that any little trivial disturbance which may have taken place in London can alter plans so important as mine?”
“I don’t think Mr. Baring would have telegraphed if the disturbance was trivial,” murmured Miss Katharine. But she did not venture to add any more and soon went sadly out of the room.
Meanwhile Mrs. Lovel was having a terribly exciting day. Impelled by a motive stronger than the love of gold, she had slipped away from Phil’s bedside in the early morning, and, fear lending her wings, had gone downstairs, written her note to Miss Griselda, and then on foot had made her way to the nearest railway station at Lyndhurst Road. There she took the first train to London. She had a carriage to herself, and she was so restless that she paced up and down its narrow length. It seemed to her that the train would never reach its destination; the minutes were lengthened into hours; the hours seemed days. When, when would she get to Waterloo? When would she see Mr. Baring? Beside her in the railway carriage, beside her in the cab, beside her as she mounted the stairs to the lawyer’s office was pale-faced fear. Could she do anything to keep the boy? Could any—any act of hers cause the avenger to stay his hand—cause the angel of death to withdraw and leave his prey untouched? In the night, as she had watched by his bedside, she had seen only too plainly what was coming. Avonsyde might be given to Phil, but little Phil himself was going away. The angels wanted him elsewhere, and they would not mind any amount of mother’s weeping, of mother’s groans; they would take the boy from her arms. Then it occurred to her poor, weak soul for the first time that perhaps if she appealed to God he would listen, and if she repented, not only in word, but in deed, he would stay his avenging hand. Hence her hurried flight; hence her anguished longing. She had not a moment to lose, for the sands of her little boy’s life were running out.