“Yes,” he said again; “I must start in about an hour. I want to see Brewer on my way to the station.”
“Then you are going by rail?”
“Of course; what else did you think I wanted the guide for?” he replied. “I have time for a cup of tea, Bessie, if you will have one ready for me in half an hour. I have one or two letters to write first,” he added, as he left the room without giving Mrs. Crichton time to ask any more questions.
“How absurdly mysterious Edmond is!” said Bessie to herself. “He seems quite to forget what I went through with poor dear Mr. Crichton.”
Half an hour later, when Mr. Guildford came back for his cup of tea, Mrs. Crichton tried him on another side.
“What shall I say to any one who calls or sends for you to-morrow, Edmond?” she asked meekly.
“Whatever you like,” said her brother boyishly, beginning to laugh as he spoke. “No, Bessie,” he went on, “it’s too bad of me to tease you. I shall be back before to-morrow, before your to-morrow begins any way, and I have left notes and directions with Sims, and I shall see Brewer on my way to the station. If you really care to know where I am going, I can only tell you it’s somewhere near Haverstock, but as to whom I am going to see or why I have been sent for, I know as little as you.”
Bessie was delighted; it sounded quite mysterious and romantic.
“I do hope for once you’ll tell me all about it when you come back to-morrow,” she said gushingly. “I am sure you must know how thoroughly I am to be trusted. Poor dear Mr. Crichton used to say—and you know a lawyer’s nearly as bad as a doctor that way, about family secrets and all that—he used constantly to say that he would quite as soon tell anything at the town cross as tell it to me—no, that’s not it, I mean the other way, that he would quite as soon tell it to me as to—what are you laughing at so, Edmond? Perhaps it wasn’t about secrets he said that. I daresay it was that I was as safe as the Bank of England. He had so many clever expressions that I confuse them, you see.”
“Yes, my dear Bessie, I see,” said Mr. Guildford gravely. “It is quite natural you should.”