"Hush Roland! I am very unhappy about Arthur."
"Why, of course you are--how came I to forget it?" he rejoined, easily satisfied as a child. "And here am I, wasting the precious time that might be spent in looking after him! Have you anything to send to Helstonleigh?"
"Only my love. My dear love to them all. You will see mamma?"
Roland suddenly took both her hands in his, and so held her before him, stooping his head a little, and speaking gently.
"Annabel, I shall have to see your mamma, and tell her----"
She did not mean that at all; it had not so much as occurred to her. Naturally the cheeks became very vivid now. Without further ado, asking no leave, bold Roland kissed the shrinking face.
"Good bye, Annabel. Wish me luck."
Away he clattered, waiting for neither scolding nor answer, and was flying along the street below, before Annabel had at all recovered her equanimity.
To resolve to go to Helstonleigh was one thing, to get to it was another; and Roland Yorke, with his customary heedlessness, had not considered ways and means. It was only when he dashed in at his lodgings that morning (as, we have heard, was related by Mrs. Jones to Mr. Ollivera), that the question struck him how he was to get there. He had not a coin in the world. Roland's earnings (the result of having put his shoulder to the wheel these three or four months past) had been deposited for safety with Mrs. Jones, it may be remembered, and they amounted to two sovereigns. These had been spent in the search after Arthur. In the first commotion of his disappearance, Roland had wildly dashed about in Hansoms; for his legs, with all their length and impatience, would not carry him from pillar to post fleet enough. He made small presents to policemen, hoping to sharpen their discovering powers; he put two advertisements in the Times, offering rewards for mysterious carpet-bags. But that a fortunate oversight caused him to omit appending any address, it was quite untellable the number of old bags that might have been brought him. All this had speedily melted the gold pieces. He then got Mrs. Jones to advance him (grumblingly) two more which went the same way, and were not yet repaid. So there he was, without money to take him to Helstonleigh, and nobody that he knew of likely to lend him any.
"I can't walk," debated he, standing stock-still in his parlour, as his penniless state occurred to him. "They'd used to call it a hundred and eleven miles in the old coaching days. It would be nothing to me if I had the time, but I can't waste that now. Hamish has set his face against my going, or I'd ask him. I wonder--I wonder whether Dick Yorke would let me have a couple of pounds?"