“What is it, aunt?”
Mrs. Birdwood turned white; that slavey had written that her mistress had run away, and—doubtless with amplifications of her own—run away with a commercial in the hosiery and haberdashery line, and had been seen with him at a circus at Sandbourne.
“You must prepare yourself for the worst,” said the aunt.
“I know it—I know it!” gasped Mrs. Birdwood.
“I don’t see how you can, as it only happened yesterday,” said the old lady.
“Well, tell me all—hold back nothing!”
“Your dear Josiah—he’s gone and scalded hisself to death, in trying to bile a plum-pudding for his Christmas dinner. The flesh is come off in collops—just like an over-boiled leg of veal—with rice, you know. Don’t cling to th’ bone. I had a rabbit too, once——”
Mrs. Birdwood uttered a cry; she did not stay to hear about the rabbit, but flew to the station. She was just in time to catch a train. She took her ticket for—she asked for one to Jessamine Villa, but the clerk said there was no such station; then she recalled the name of the town in the outskirts of which Jessamine Villa was situated.
Weeping, trembling, sick at heart, she sat in the third-class carriage, as she was whirled home—to the home she had left, to the husband she had deserted.