"Yes, I think so: he seemed pretty well yesterday. You did not come to the Maze last night, Karl. He was wishing for you."
Karl turned off the subject. The fright he had had, coming out on Saturday night, would serve to keep him away for some days to come. In his heart of hearts he believed that, in the interests of prudence, the less he went to the Maze the better: instinct was always telling him so.
"I suppose you will return to-night, Rose?"
"If I can," she answered. "It depends on Rennet. Should I be obliged to wait until to-morrow, I shall have to sleep at an hotel: Adam has directed me to one." And so the conversation innocently progressed, and the train went on.
But now, as capricious fortune had it, who should be in that self-same train but Miss Blake! Miss Blake was going up to London en cachette. That is to say, she had not intended Sir Karl and Lady Andinnian to know of the journey. Some grand piece of work, involving choice silks and much embroidery, was being projected by Miss Blake for Mr. Cattacomb's use at St. Jerome's: she had determined to get the silks at first hand, which she could only do in London; and took the train this morning for the purpose. "If I am not in to luncheon, don't
think anything of it: I can get a biscuit out," she said to Lucy: and Miss Blake's general out-of-door engagements appeared to be so numerous--what with the church services, and the hunting-up little ragamuffins from their mothers' cottages for instruction--that Lucy would have thought nothing of it had she been away all day long. Miss Blake, however, intended to get back in the afternoon.
Seated in her compartment, waiting for the train to start, she had seen Sir Karl Andinnian come running on to the platform; and she drew her face back out of sight. She saw him put into a carriage just behind her own: and she felts a little cross that he should be going to London at all.
"What is taking him, I wonder?" she thought. "He never said a word about it at breakfast. I don't believe Lucy knows it."
Arrived at the terminus, Miss Blake, knowing that gentlemen mostly leap out of a train before it has well stopped, held back herself. Cautiously peeping to see him pass and get fairly off, she saw what she had not expected to see--Sir Karl helping out a lady. They passed on quickly: Sir Karl carrying a large clasped reticule bag, and the lady clinging to his arm. She was closely veiled: but Miss Blake's keen eyes knew her through the veil for Mrs. Grey.
Miss Blake could have groaned the roof off the carriage. She was the only passenger left in it. "The deceitful villain!" she exclaimed: and then she burst on to the platform, and sheltered herself behind a projecting board to look after the criminals.
Sir Karl was putting Mrs. Grey into a four-wheeled cab. He handed in her reticule bag after her, shook hands, gave a direction to the driver, and the cab went off. Then he looked round for a hansom, and was driven away in his turn. Miss Blake, making good her own departure, believed she had not yet suspected half the tricks and turns there must be in this wicked world.