"I hope you are well, Anne Hereford," was her reply, but she pointedly and rudely neglected my offered hand.
"Did you leave your husband well?" Mr. Chandos hastily asked, as a sort of covering to her ill manners.
"Well neither in health nor in temper, but as cranky as can be. I ran away."
"Ran away!"
"Of course I did. There came to me a letter, some days past——"
"Yes, I wrote to you," I interrupted.
"You!" she rudely said, in a condemning tone of voice; "I am not alluding to your letter. When this other letter came, I told Alfred I must go at once to Chandos. 'Very well,' said he, 'I shall be able to take you in a day or so.' But the days went on, and still he was too ill; or said he was. 'I must go,' I said to him yesterday morning. 'I must and I will,' and that put him up. 'Listen, ma chère,' cried he, in his cool way, 'I am too ill to travel, and there's nobody else to take you, so you can't go; therefore let us hear no more about it.' Merci, monsieur! I thought to myself; and I forthwith told Pauline to pack up, and get the boxes out of the house en cachette. Which she did: and I followed them, Alfred and Madame in Mère believing I had gone for a drive in the Bois de Boulogne. A pretty long drive they must think it by this time."
"Emily, how can you act so?" exclaimed her brother, in a tone of stern reproval.
"Now, Harry, I don't want any of your morality. Look at home, before you preach to me. What have you been doing the last few weeks? I have heard."
"Shall I pay for the chaise, ma'am?" inquired Hickens, putting in his head.