But Theydon had a scheme ready, having foreseen this very difficulty.
"Mr. Handyside will attend to everything," he said glibly. "Please let me come with you. I shan't have a moment's peace until assured that Mrs. Forbes is suffering from little more than a slight indisposition."
Evelyn looked puzzled, but was willing to agree to anything so long as she reached her mother quickly. Handyside, too, made matters easy by lifting his hat and walking off in the direction of the luggage van.
"Well," she said, "I really don't care what happens if only I lose no time."
Suiting the action to the word, she hurried toward the exit, and was murmuring something that sounded like an apology for her seeming brusqueness as they passed the ticket collector. Here a momentary difficulty arose. Theydon had forgotten to ask Handyside for his ticket. The girl, of course, had her own ticket, but her companion was not allowed to pass the barrier. He began an explanation to which a busy official paid no heed. In desperation, he produced a sovereign, and his card.
"Here," he said, "you can hold this as a guarantee that my ticket will be given up. This lady has been called to the bedside of her mother, who is said to be dangerously ill, and I simply must be allowed to take her to the Royal Devonshire Hotel."
Luckily, the railwayman had the wit to see that this earnest-eyed passenger was speaking the truth.
"That's all right, sir," he said. "We have to be very particular about tickets, you know."
Evelyn Forbes was a few yards in advance, and impatiently awaiting her escort, when a gentleman approached and spoke to her.
"Miss Forbes, I believe," he said, raising his hat.