Nigel, pretending an alacrity he was far from feeling, rushed out of the door, leaving his father alone.
“Where’s ‘Bradshaw’?” the General asked of himself, glancing around the library in search of the well-known “guide.” Then, laying his hand upon it, he commenced a traverse of its puzzling pages, in search of the Great Western Railway.
The carriage, not very speedily brought to the door, was yet ready before he had become quite certain about the exact time of a suitable train. This was at length ascertained; and then, flinging aside the book, and permitting the old butler to array him in proper travelling habiliments—not forgetting to put into his large pocket-book the strange epistle, with its still stranger enclosure—he stepped inside the chariot, and was driven towards Slough.
The General’s carriage had scarce cleared the gates of Beechwood Park, when a pedestrian appeared upon the gravelled drive going in the same direction.
It was his son, Nigel. He also seemed in a state of agitation; though its cause was very different from that which had taken his father in such haste along the road to the railway station.
Nigel had no intention of going so far; nor was he at the moment even thinking of the peril in which his brother was placed.
His thoughts were given to one nearer home—one far dearer to him than that brother. He was simply proceeding to the residence of the Widow Mainwaring, where for three months—partly owing to a taboo which his father had placed on it—he had been but an occasional and clandestine visitor.