“Oh, we must hurry,” he said shamefacedly. “I have kept you here too long, for we have yet to
trace huge forests and unharbour’d heaths,
Infamous hills and sandy perilous wilds,
before we see Chester—and Mrs. Leland.”
With that the bubble was pricked, and staid Ludlow became a busy market-town again, its streets blocked by the barrows of hucksters and farmers’ carts, its converging roads thronged with cattle. At Shrewsbury Medenham was vouchsafed a gleam of frosty humor by Mrs. Devar’s anxiety lest her son might have obeyed her earlier injunctions, and kept tryst at “The Raven” after all. That trivial diversion soon passed. He hoped that Cynthia would share the front seat with him in the final run to Chester; but she remained tucked up in the tonneau, and the dread that kept her there was bitter-sweet to him, since it betrayed her increasing lack of confidence in herself.
The rendezvous was at the Grosvenor Hotel, and Medenham had made up his mind how to act long before the red towers of Chester Cathedral glowed above the city’s haze in the fire of a magnificent sunset. Dale was waiting on the pavement when the Mercury drew up at the galleried entrance to the hotel.
Medenham leaped down.
“Good-by, Miss Vanrenen,” he said, holding out his hand. “I can catch an early train to town by hurrying away at once. This is Dale, who will take my place. He is thoroughly reliable, and an even more careful driver than I am.”
“Are you really going—like that?” faltered Cynthia, and her face blanched at the suddenness of it.