This feeling of security did not last long, however, and she was filled with dismay as she thought that Emil Correlli would doubtless discover her flight in the course of half an hour, if he had not already done so, when he would probably surmise that she would go immediately to New York and so telegraph to have her arrested upon her arrival there.
This was a difficulty which she had not foreseen.
What should she do?—how could she circumvent him? how protect herself and defy his authority over her?
A bright idea flashed into her mind.
She would telegraph to Royal Bryant at the first stop made by the train, ask him to meet her upon her arrival, and thus secure his protection against any plot that Emil Correlli might lay for her.
The first stopping-place she knew was Framingham, a small town about twenty miles from Boston.
The first time the conductor came through the car she asked him for a Western Union slip, when she wrote the following message and addressed it to Royal Bryant's office on Broadway:
"Shall arrive at Grand Central Station, via. B. & A. R. R., at nine o'clock. Do not fail to meet me. Important.
"Edith Allandale."
When the conductor came back again, she gave this to him, with the necessary money, and asked if he would kindly forward it from Framingham for her.