CHAPTER II
Micky stood staring at the envelope in his hand. He felt as if something had happened to paralyse all power of action.
Esther Shepstone and Ashton’s girl from Eldred’s were one and the same; that was all he could grasp, and it sounded absurd and impossible.
He had heard so much of this girl––Ashton had talked about her times without number––Lallie he had called her; now he came to think of it, Micky could not remember having ever heard her spoken of by any other name; and Lallie and Esther Shepstone were one and the same.
Was this, then, why she had cried, because of Ashton...?
Ashton called to him impatiently from the stairs.
“What the deuce are you doing? I shall miss my train.”
Micky roused himself with a start, and, dropping the letter into his pocket, went slowly out of the room; he felt as if he could not have hurried had his life depended upon it; there was an absurdly cold sort of feeling round his heart.
It was ridiculous, of course; it was nothing to him if the girl with whom he had dined an hour ago loved Ashton; he had never seen her before. That sounded an absurd truth, too; it seemed impossible that until this evening he and she had never met.
“For heaven’s sake, hurry up, man,” said Ashton again sharply.