“I wanted to see her to-night, very particularly. Order the brougham in ten minutes. I am going to the Travellers’ Club. I shall be home soon—say eleven o’clock—when her ladyship arrives.”
The baronet was driven to and from the club by his own coachman, but on returning to Wensley House was told that his wife was still absent.
“No telegram or message?”
“No, Sir Charles.”
“I suppose she will stay with her sister all night, and I shall have a note in the morning to say so. Just like a woman. Now if I did that, James, there would be no end of a row. Anxiety, and that sort of thing. Call me at 8.30.”
An hour later Sir Charles Dyke left the library and went to bed.
At breakfast next morning the master of the house rapidly scanned the letters near his plate for the expected missive from his wife. There was none.
A maid was waiting. He sent her to call the butler.
“Look here, Thompson,” he cried, “her ladyship has not written. Don’t you think I had better wire? It’s curious, to say the least, going off to Richmond in this fashion, in a beastly fog, too.”