The man's grim face relaxed into a smile as Lumsden dashed down the square and jumped into a passing hansom.
"Double fare if you reach Paddington in five minutes," he shouted, thoroughly roused out of his normal state of lazy contentment by this unexpected move on the enemy's part.
He understood Mrs. Bladon perhaps better than that astute lady imagined.
At Paddington he espied the party—Sir George and Lady Forsyth, with valet and maid and a mass of baggage; Mrs. Bladon calm and serene, with Nancy lovelier than ever in her dark blue travelling costume with a touch of vivid scarlet at the throat.
She was looking anxiously about her, and as her eyes lighted on Lumsden's dark handsome face and tall lithe figure she smiled—a little, quick, flashing smile, mingled with a tinge of pink colour in her soft cheeks.
He made his way towards her as she was borne towards the Plymouth express in a vortex of people and baggage.
There was only five minutes, and she was going abroad.
Perhaps he had never realised all she was to him till that moment, and in the instant when Mrs. Bladon was saying last words to Lady Forsyth he reached Nancy's side. Their hands met in a long and close clasp.
"I could not believe it—that you were going away," he said, in quick, eager tones; "why did you not tell me?"
"I never saw you," she began, quickly. "You never came, and——"