The guard was surprised. He thought the lady must have made a mistake.
"This is not Stilborough, ma'am. You are booked to Stilborough."
"But I will not go on to Stilborough: I will descend here instead. See my poor child"--showing the hot face of a little girl who lay half asleep upon her knee. "She has, I fear, the fever coming on, and she is so fatigued. This must be a healthy place; it has the sea, I perceive; and I think she shall rest here for a day or two before going on."
The landlord and his wife had heard this colloquy, for the lady spoke at the open window. They advanced, and the guard threw wide the door.
"Will you carry my little one?" said the lady to Mrs. Bent. "I fear she is going to be ill, and I do not care to take her on farther. Can I be accommodated with a good apartment here?"
"The best rooms we have, ma'am, are at your service; and you will find them excellent, though I say it myself," returned Mrs. Bent, receiving the child into her arms.
"Marie fatiguée," plaintively called out the little thing, who seemed about three years old. "Marie ne peut marcher."
The lady reassured her in the same language, and alighted. She was a tall, ladylike young woman of apparently some six-and-twenty years, with soft, fair hair, and a pleasing face that wore signs of care, or weariness: or perhaps both. Mrs. Bent carried the child into the parlour; John followed with a large hand-reticule made of plaited black-and-white straw, and the guard put two trunks in the passage, a large one and a small one.
"I am en voyage," said the lady, addressing Mrs. Bent--and it may be remarked that, though speaking English with fluency, and with very little foreign accent, she now and then substituted a French word, or a whole sentence as though the latter were more familiar to her in everyday life--and of which John Bent and his wife did not understand a syllable.
"But we have voyaged far, and the sea-crossing was frightfully rough, and I fear I have brought my little one on too quickly: so it may be well to halt here for a short time, and keep her quiet. I hope your hotel is not crowded with company?"