Ours was a quick train, and went straight through to London without stopping. After arriving at Waterloo station, therefore, we were obliged to wait for nearly an hour before we could get another which would take us to Haslemere.
A curious feeling that I had passed through all this before came over me, and as we stepped out of our carriage on the platform of the Haslemere station it seemed but yesterday that I had arrived at the same place, intent on bidding Karine that farewell which never had been spoken.
The time of day gave me the only sense of difference. We had left the ship early in the morning, had made our first journey in two hours, and now it was only very little past noon.
I had wished (considering the reception I had met at Sir Walter Tressidy's on my first and last visit at his country house) to remain at an hotel in Haslemere, there to await such news as Cunningham might have to bring. For Karine's sake, I thought, it would be better for me not to appear openly in the matter, unless it proved that the influence of her brother and his narrative were not as potent in their effect as I anticipated. Should he require any attestations from me, I was only too glad to be on the spot and to be called upon to give them.
Cunningham, however, had overruled this programme of mine. No one could tell, he said, how he might be received. He might be sorely in need of me to back him up–perhaps even to prove the truth of his otherwise unsupported assertions.
The Tressidys, he alleged, were peculiar. Though his sister had not confided in him, he knew that she was unhappy with them. They had very little money of their own on which to keep up the appearance they wished to make in the eyes of their world, and Cunningham did not believe that Lady Tressidy would be above accepting a heavy bribe from Wildred for furthering his suit, by almost any means, with poor Karine.
Half against my will, therefore, yet not wholly with reluctance, I must confess, I entered the carriage which was to drive us both to the house where a few weeks ago I had been so ruthlessly repulsed.
"Thank heaven!" I said, as we rattled up the hill (perhaps in the same vehicle which had driven me before), "that the storm wasn't just a degree more severe in crossing. It was touch and go with us one day, at all events, I believe; but a fraction worse, and we shouldn't have been here now to stand between Miss Cunningham and that villain. A week or ten days more, perhaps, and even if we'd reached her we might have been too late."
There was a certain tumultuous joy in my heart, far removed from happiness, yet intoxicating as new wine. Karine might never be mine, but she was saved, and it would be I who had saved her. I could never be regarded by her quite with indifference after this day.
As we drove we made various hurried plans as to what we should do if we were refused admittance. We were determined at least to see Karine, even if we were obliged to force our way into her presence.