Presently a buxom serving maid tript in to say that the carriage was waiting; and, descending to the door, they found the vehicle, with Alma’s travelling trunk and the clergyman’s valise upon the box. The weird boy was still there, jubilant. Somehow or other he had procured a large white rosette, which he had pinned to the breast of his coat. Two or three sleepy village folk, whom the lews of the wedding had partially aroused from their chronic state of torpor, were clustering on the pavement; and the landlord and landlady stood at the door to wish the strange couple God speed.
Away they drove, while one of the slumberous villagers started a feeble cheer. Through the green lanes, along the grassy uplands, they passed back to the railway station, which they reached just in time to catch, as they had planned, the down train to Newhaven.
That afternoon they crossed by the tidal boat to Dieppe, where, in a brand-new hotel facing the sea, they slept that night. They were almost the only visitors, for the summer bathing season had scarcely begun, and they would have found the place cheerless enough had they been in a less happy mood of mind.
The next day found them wandering about the picturesque old town, visiting the wharves and the old churches, and strolling on the deserted esplanade which faced the sea. They thought themselves unsuspected, but somehow everyone knew their secret—that they were a married couple on their honeymoon. When they returned to the hotel to lunch, they found a bunch of orange-blossoms on the table, placed there by the hands of a sympathetic landlady.
‘We must go on farther,’ said Bradley, rather irritably. ‘I suppose the newly-married alight here often, and being experts in that sort of commodity, they recognise it at a glance.’
So that afternoon they went on to Rouen, where they arrived as the sun was setting on that town of charming bridges. When their train reached the station, a train arrived almost simultaneously from Paris, and as there was a ten minutes’ interval for both upward and downward passengers, the platform was thronged.
Bradley passed through the crowd, with Alma hanging upon his arm. He looked neither to right nor left, but seemed bent on passing out of the station; and he did not notice a dark-eyed lady by whom he was evidently recognised.
On seeing him, she started and drew back among the crowd, leading by the hand a little boy. But when he had passed she looked after him, and more particularly after his beautiful companion.
‘It is he, sure enough!’ she muttered ‘But who is that stylish party in his company? I should very much like to know.’
The lady was ‘Mrs. Montmorency,’ clad like a widow in complete weeds, and travelling with her little boy, also dressed in funeral black, from Paris to London.