Ten o’clock. She wondered whether Margaret and Granville were still up. Even tourists go to bed early in Switzerland, and, considering their plans for the next day, she thought it doubtful. So she slipped downstairs, and told the porter that she was obliged to go away suddenly, and would like to leave by the first train in the morning. Which was it?
“Ah, there is one at sigs o’clock, mees,” he said. “There is a party leaving at five to catch it. Ze young lady will perhaps like to travel with them?”
On further inquiry Catherine found that the train she would go by left the station half an hour after the one by which the Grays would travel. She determined to remain in her room till they had started, and thus manage her departure unobserved. She went upstairs again, and wrote two little notes, one to Margaret and one to Granville.
“Dearest Margaret,” said the first, “please don’t think me ungrateful for going away like this. I shall never forget you or your kindness. Perhaps some day I shall be able to thank you, but for the present I implore you not to try to find out where I am gone.”
The other was more difficult of composition; but after two or three attempts she produced the following—
“Please do not think me unkind if I say that I think it better for both of us not to meet again. I cannot explain why, but I am sure that I am right. Good-bye, my dear.”
She could not refrain from the little touch of tenderness at the end, though afterwards she would have given worlds to recall it. “After all,” she argued, “he must know that I do care; and I would rather he thought that than that he should believe I let him behave so, without loving him.”
And so it happened that the next morning she was on her way back to England, a week before she had anticipated; certainly her holiday had not failed to bring her adventures.
(To be continued.)