“I’d like to know the terms that got you that shop.”
Then Eunice burst out with:
“You told me yourself it was the only way to get a start. I shouldn’t be the first, and——”
But Flora interrupted.
“Don’t you touch it, Euny,” she said. “Don’t be a fool. You’d never forgive yourself, and it isn’t as if you’re likely to get on.”
Ah! that unhappy string! Why must all her advisers harp upon it?
“Isn’t it? Well, I will get on, you’ll see. I’m not going to be an old stick-in-the-mud all my life—like—like some people.”
That night Flora wrote to Harry for the last time, and told him the state of affairs.
On receipt of the letter Henry Churchill went quite mad. Seizing his hat and an umbrella, he rushed to the station and steamed Mary-wards by the first train. Had he possessed such a thing, he would probably have taken a revolver rather than an umbrella, for his intentions were certainly lethal.
The great length of the railway journey had the effect of partially flattening his effervescence, and surely the hand of Providence was evident in the fact that the first person he met on arriving at his destination was Eliphalet Cardomay. The sight of the old actor peaceably pursuing his way brought about a fresh paroxysm of anger.