“Can you let me have the dogcart to drive into Aberkerran at once? I must catch the mail to-night for town, and get the Flushing boat in the morning.”
“But are you going back to Thracia so soon?” asked Nadia in astonishment. “Have they sent for you?”
“Yes; I have had a telegram. The King is dangerously ill, and wants me. I have sent Dietrich on with the luggage, Caerleon; but I thought that if I just stayed to say good-bye to you all, the dogcart would take me into Aberkerran in time to save the train.”
“I’ll drive you myself,” said Caerleon. “Send round the dogcart at once, Wright,” he added to the coachman.
“But have you really been able to get everything packed?” asked Nadia. “Can’t we help you at all?”
“Oh, mother, I helped!” cried Philippa. “Uncle Cyril got his things out, and I folded them up, and Dietrich put them in. They’re all done, and Uncle Cyril said I was a great help.”
Clearly there was nothing left to do, and Philippa relieved the tension of the situation by spinning round wildly on one foot, while her father changed his coat, and her uncle, dissembling his impatience admirably, thanked his sister-in-law for her hospitality. There was little time for farewells when the dogcart came round; but the children did their best to make up for this by standing at the door and waving their hands until the traveller was out of sight. When he was at length released from looking back and answering their signals, Cyril turned to his brother.
“We shall do it all right at this pace, old man.”
“Yes; the roads are capital this evening. Have you any idea as to what’s wrong with Otto Georg?”
“I should fear it is an old trouble from which he has suffered more than once. It began with some injury he received in the Franco-Prussian war, and they say that each time it recurs there is less hope of his getting over it.”