“Listen,” she said, and her voice, gentle though it was, had in it a new quality which awed and impressed the hearer. “Listen!—there is not one single minute to spare. If there was a train at half-past three, I should catch that, box or no box, for father is dying, Aunt Margaret—he would not have let me be summoned like this for any passing ailment. Nothing in all the world would make me wait here until to-morrow, so please, dear, do not hinder me now. I know it is impossible for you to come with me, but I will telegraph the moment I arrive, and if—if there is still time, you can follow then.”
“But you can’t travel alone! Edward would not like it. He is so particular. How can you manage about the trains?”
“Listen! I have thought of that too. Put on your bonnet and go to the telephone office at the corner. Ask the people at the agency if they can possibly send a lady courier to meet me at the train at Charing Cross. If they can, very well! If they can’t, I am twenty-two, and can speak French easily, and am not afraid of travelling by myself. I will telegraph to Cook’s agent to meet me in Paris, if it will make you any happier, but I am going, auntie dear, and I have not a moment to spare. I will get dressed now, and the cab must be here in half an hour.”
Miss Munns turned without a word, and left the room. She had the sense to know when she was beaten, and, having once faced the situation, set to work in her usual business-like fashion, and proved the most capable of helpers. Having been successful in arranging for a lady courier through the convenient medium of the telephone, she returned home to write labels, fasten together cloaks and umbrellas, and order a hasty but tempting little meal for the refreshment of the traveller. This accomplished, she returned once more to the bedroom, where Sylvia was putting the last touches to her packing.
“Nearly finished? That’s right, my dear. You have eight minutes still, and tea is waiting for you downstairs. Don’t trouble to tidy the room, I’ll attend to that after you have gone. All these things on the bed—they had better be packed away in the attics, I suppose. It’s a pity they were ever bought, as things have turned out. You may never need them now.”
“No, I may never need them now!” said Sylvia steadily. “In one minute, aunt, just one minute. You go down and pour out my tea, and I’ll follow immediately. I’ve just one thing more I want to do.”
“Don’t dawdle, then—don’t dawdle! Mary will fasten the straps—don’t wait for that.”
Miss Munns departed, unwillingly enough, and Sylvia shut the door after her, and gave a swift step back towards the bed. The satin dress, and the fan, and the gloves, and the jaunty little shoes lay there looking precisely the same as they had done an hour ago—the only difference was in the eyes which beheld them.
Sylvia had read of a bride who was buried in her wedding dress, and she felt at this moment as if she were leaving her own girlhood behind, with that mass of dainty white finery. What lay in the future she could not tell; only one thing seemed certain, that those few words on the slip of brown paper had made a great chasm of separation between it and the past. The opportunity for which she had longed was not to be hers; she must leave England without so much as a word of farewell to the friends who of late had filled such a large part of her life.
If her plans had been frustrated by one of the annoying little contretemps of daily life, Sylvia would have exhausted herself in lamentations and repinings, but she was dumb before this great catastrophe, which came so obviously from a higher Hand. When her father lay dying, there was no regret in her heart for a lost amusement, but this hurried departure might mean more—much more than the forfeiture of Esmeralda’s hospitality. She stretched out her hand, and smoothed the satin folds with a very tender touch.