"No, thank you. I--I must think how to word it. Please wait."
She went in alone. As she took the pencil into her hands a low groan burst from her lips. The man writing in the next compartment turned round in astonishment. She controlled herself and began to write. There was no escape. She must submit; and all was over.
She telegraphed to Warkworth, care of the Chef de Gare, at the Sceaux Station, and also to the country inn.
"Have met Mr. Delafield by chance at Nord Station. Lord Lackington dying. Must return to-night. Where shall I write? Good-bye."
When it was done she could hardly totter out of the office. Delafield made her take his arm.
"You must have some food. Then I will go and get a sleeping-car for you to Calais. There will be no crowd to-night. At Calais I will look after you if you will allow me."
"You are crossing to-night?" she said, vaguely. Her lips framed the words with difficulty.
"Yes. I came over with my cousins yesterday."
She asked nothing more. It did not occur to her to notice that he had no luggage, no bag, no rug, none of the paraphernalia of travel. In her despairing fatigue and misery she let him guide her as he would.
He made her take some soup, then some coffee, all that she could make herself swallow. There was a dismal period of waiting, during which she was hardly conscious of where she was or of what was going on round her.