The doctor organizes tactics rapidly. He can hear that Sally's step goes up the street, and then the voices at a distance. If he can say good-bye and rush away just as Sally does the same, why then they will meet outside, don't you see?
Rosalind and her husband seem to have wireless telegrams passing. For when Sally vanishes there is a ring as of instruction received in the tone of Fenwick's voice as he addresses the doctor:
"Couldn't you manage to get your mother to come too, Vereker? She must be terribly in want of a change."
"So I tell her; but she's so difficult to move."
"Have a sedan-chair thing——"
"I don't mean that—not physically difficult. I mean she's got so anchored no one can persuade her to move. She hasn't been away for ages."
"Sally must go and persuade her." It is Rosalind who says this. "I'm sure Sally will manage it."
"She will if any one can," says the doctor. "Of course, I could soon get a locum if there was a chance of mother." And then the conversation supports itself on the possible impossibility of finding a lodging at St. Sennans-on-Sea, and consoles itself with its intense improbability till the doctor finds it necessary to depart with the promptitude of a fire-engine suddenly rung up.
He had calculated his time to a nicety, for he met Sally just as "the other two" got safe round the corner.