"I did not say he would be in London the night before. Might he not post his letter in Wales, or Cornwall, or Scotland, or Ireland?"
"Yes; but then, aunt, he ought to be here as soon as his letter."
"Now you are an impatient girl. Business might prevent his coming on by the mail. He might come by a late train. My presentiments are always right, or nearly always; and this is one of the very strongest I ever had in all my life."
Marion shook her head in despair rather than incredulity. Whatever was the matter, Charlie might have written. What business had he anywhere? In the ordinary sense of the word, he had no business. What he had to do with editors and proprietors of papers and publishers, was all done in London, not in that hateful place to which he had gone, wherever it was.
She did not care for her breakfast that morning. She drank a cup of tea, ate a mouthful of dry bread, but left the eggs and bacon untouched.
Miss Traynor having done all she could to cheer her niece, and being one of those gentle natures which cannot endure the sight of unhappiness in others when she was powerless to lessen it, took up The Times, partly to try and distract herself, and partly to shut out from her eyes the painful sight of the young girl's saddened face.
The gale of the night and day before had been general in England, and London had got its share of it. But a whole gale on the coast never seems more than a stiff breeze in London. Nevertheless, the gale of yesterday had not passed over London without inflicting injury; and among the other things which it had done within the ten-mile radius was to fling a chimney-pot into the street, just opposite Miss Traynor's front-door.
This had been a terrible event in the mind of Miss Traynor.
She had been fascinated at the time, and anticipated nothing short of the destruction of her own house and of everyone in it. She had eventually congratulated herself a dozen times on the fact that her will was made, and that Marion should have all she had the power to bequeath, in complete forgetfulness that according to her own theory, Marion would be included among the slain.
However, as afternoon passed into evening, the gale subsided, and Miss Traynor's apprehensions declined. But as she ceased to fear, she began to feel an interest in the perils she had passed. Therefore when, this morning, she saw a column of The Times headed "Yesterday's Gale," it instantly attracted her interest, and settling her spectacles on her nose, she began to read.