When the long spring day is coming at last to a close, Pauline dries her eyes, rings for a cup of tea, and then, drawing her desk to the couch on which she is lying, after some troubled deliberation writes a note, which early next morning is put into the hands of Mr. Everard, then smoking a cigar on the deck of the "Sea-Gull," lying at anchor between Southsea and Ryde.
"Nutsgrove, Thursday.
"I am alone, and in deep distress. All day long I have sighed for the sound of a true friend's voice, for the clasp of a comforting hand on mine. I thought of you—I don't know why. Can you come to
Pauline?"
"No, Pauline, I can't come! Sorry to disoblige a young lady; but I can't come to you. Certainly not!" he mutters stoutly, pacing the deck with hurried step, the letter fluttering in his hand. "Certainly not, Miss Pauline! You've signaled too late—too late, young lady; you must get some other hand than mine to clasp you in your distress. Saunderson's paw ought to do the business; it's big enough, at any rate. 'Alone and in deep distress.' By Jove, I wonder what it means? She must have quarreled with her sister, or with Armstrong. Well, well, it's no business of mine; I won't bother any more about it. Ah, here's the morning paper! I wonder if Carleton has won his race? Hang it, I've thrown away my cigar! Let me see—Cambridgeshire meeting. Ah, here it is!"
But, alas, Everard can extract no information from the sporting-column this morning, for all up and down the page the words are dancing in letters of fire—
"Can you come—can you come—can you come to Pauline?"
He throws down the newspaper in disgust, and exclaims irritably—
"I can't, I can't, I tell you—I can't!"
Half an hour later two sailors are pulling him as hard as they can to Portsmouth Harbor, whence an express bears him northward to Pauline in her distress.
Long before he arrives, the first half hour after he enters Nutshire, he knows the reason of her hurried appeal, and the news of the scandal—with which the whole of Kelvick is ringing—stupefies the young man almost as much as it did poor Robert. He sits staring blindly at the flying landscape, trying to realize the startling truth; but he can only picture Addie as he last saw her but one week before, standing under the big magnolia, her hand clasped in his smiling up into her husband's placid face.