“Not the slightest, I should say. If we don’t get back in time for our drive to the station, the flymen will give the alarm, and some one will come over to see what has gone wrong. The worst that may happen is that we shall have to wait until the men get back from their regatta, but you need have no fear of remaining for the night.”
“But in any case it will be impossible to catch our train.”
“I fear it will. We shall have to make the best of it, and camp at the inn until morning. It’s unfortunate, but there are worse troubles at sea. Don’t look so miserable, Peggy; I promise you, you shall come to no harm.”
“But, mother—Mrs Asplin—what will they think? If we don’t get back until late, can we send a telegram to them? It is such a tiny place that the office might be closed.”
Arthur’s face clouded over, for this was a view of the case which had not occurred to him, and former experiences of country villages did not tend to reassure him.
“I can’t tell you. I will drive to the station and do my best to send a wire from there, but that’s all I can say. There is one comfort: they know at home that if we miss the seven o’clock train, we are fixed for the night, so they won’t be as anxious as they might otherwise have been. They will probably guess pretty well what has happened.”
He spoke with an assumption of confidence, but Peggy was not to be deceived, and she turned on her heel and walked along the shore, wringing her hands together, and catching her breath in short, gasping sobs.
“Help me! Oh, help me!” she repeated over and over again in a quivering voice, and the cry was addressed to no human ear. She was speaking direct to One who understood her trouble, who knew without being told the reason of her anxiety. Not in vain had Mrs Asplin set an example of a Christian’s faith and trust before the girl’s quick-seeing eyes. Peggy had never forgotten her sweet calm on hearing the doctor’s verdict, or that other interview in the vicarage garden when she herself had first resolved to join the great army of Christ, and the habit was growing daily stronger to turn to Him for help in all the difficult paths of life. Now in “this moment of intensest anxiety her first impulse was to leave her companions,” and go away by herself where she could pour out her heart in a deep, voiceless prayer. She walked round to the further side of the little islet, and seating herself on the same stone which an hour earlier had been the scene of her tête-à-tête with Hector, covered her face with her hands and rocked to and fro in an abandonment of grief. They could not catch the train ... They could send no telegram of reassurement; the night would pass—the long, long night, and no word would be received of their safety ... For her own father and mother she was not seriously concerned, for they were too old travellers not to allow for unexpected delays, and had moreover prophesied more than once that such a scatter-brained party would be certain to miss their train; but Mrs Asplin with her exaggerated ideas of distance, her terror of the sea, her nervous forebodings of evil—how would she endure those long waiting hours? With her imaginative eye, Peggy saw before her the scene in the drawing-room at the vicarage, as the hour of arrival passed by without bringing the return of the travellers; saw the sweet, worn face grow even paler and more strained, the thin hands pressed against the heart. She recalled the pathetic plea which had been made to her, and her own vow of remembrance, and once more the responsibility of the position seemed heavier than she could bear. “Oh, help me!” she murmured once more. “Help me now!” and then a voice spoke to her by name, and she looked up, to see Rob’s anxious face looking into hers.
“What is it, Peggy? Something troubles you—something more than you will tell the others. Can you tell me? Can I help you, dear?”
It was the old Rob back again at the first hint of trouble, the old Rob, with no trace of the laboured pleasantness of the past weeks, but with eyes full of faithful friendship. Peggy gave a gasp of relief, and clutched his arm with an eager hand.