The next day passed without event of any moment. It seemed long and wearisome to Philippa, for in her increased terror of discovery she almost exaggerated her precautions, and scarcely ventured to leave her own room. Late in the afternoon she was sitting by the open window of her sister’s apartment, which looked out on the front of the house, when the sound of wheels caught her attention, and glancing out she saw a dog-cart coming round from the stables.
It was hidden from view for a few minutes as it stood under the large porch, but the sound of voices and laughter reached her ears, telling their own tale, as she distinguished, “good-bye, old fellow,” “too bad of you,” and the like. And in another minute the cart drove off, though not so rapidly as to prevent her perceiving that one of its occupants was Michael Gresham; and leaning forward slightly she caught sight of Solomon’s little brown person comfortably ensconced on the seat beside his master. Just at that moment the young man looked up. That he saw her there could be no question, for he instinctively lifted his hand to his cap, and Philippa, crimsoning, drew back hastily behind the window-curtains.
“It was rather nice of him,” she said to herself, “though rash. I do hope no one saw it. Poor old Solomon, I wonder if I shall ever stroke his smooth little back again!”
What would she have thought had she known that the departure of both master and dog had been hastened by some forty-eight hours or so, as the only means Michael could see of putting a stop to his cousin’s disastrous proposal of escorting Mrs Marmaduke Headfort on her homeward way?
There are—there must be such things as “brainwaves.” What had made Michael look up at the first-storey windows as he drove away from Wyverston?
Philippa, as she got up from her seat by the window and began some preparations for Evelyn’s packing, was conscious of some intermingling of feelings with regard to her former fellow-traveller’s departure. It was, in a sense, a relief to know that the only person who, besides the kindly old housekeeper, was in possession of her secret, had left the place; a salve to her wounded dignity to be no longer in dread of coming across the man to whom circumstances had forced her to appeal so unwillingly. Yet, with Michael Gresham there went a certain sense of protection and security. Somehow or other she was instinctively assured that however he might blame her, he would have stood by her in any worse complication, had such arisen, and would have exerted himself to the utmost to ward off more serious trouble.
“I am happier than I can express to know that we shall so soon be away from this place,” she said to herself over and over again that evening. “To think that it is not now days but hours only that have to pass before we are safe on our way home—dear home, dearest home! I do not care how angry my darling mother is; I do not care how shocked father looks; I have deserved it for my headstrong presumption; I only care for the delight of being safe with them again. And I don’t think anything worse can happen now, so very near our going, and good Mrs Shepton so on the alert.” Her hopes were fulfilled. Nothing more to startle or alarm the sisters occurred. And if there were any remarks in the servants’-hall about “Miss Ray’s” headache, which again incapacitated her from coming down to supper or joining in the more or less harmless gossip which went on at that sociable meal, remarks friendly or the reverse, Philippa did not hear them. Their early start the next morning was a reason too for Mrs Marmaduke’s coming up to bed betimes, and when she congratulated her sister on her cleverness in having the boxes all but ready to lock, Philippa turned to her with a radiant face.
“Oh, Evey,” she exclaimed, “I am so thankful to be going home!”
“I am sure you are, you poor dear,” said Evelyn, tenderly. “It must have been unutterably dull for you, poked up here by yourself, except when you were forced to—Pah! I can’t think of it—you, my beautiful Phil, sitting at table with a crew of servants—common servants.”
“They were not all common,” said her sister. “Some, on the contrary, were very uncommon. I have told you about the dear old housekeeper. No, as regards that part of it all, I have been really very lucky.”