"Not the slightest," said Zora; "but I'll do it if you like."
So the telegram was dispatched to "Septimus Dix, Boulogne Boat, Folkestone," and Mrs. Oldrieve took a brighter view of the situation.
"We have done what we can, at any rate," she said by way of self-consolation.
Now it so happened that Emmy, like many another person at their wits' end, had given herself an amazing amount of unnecessary trouble. Her flight had not been noticed till the maid had entered her room at half-past eight. She had obviously packed up some things in a handbag. Obviously again she had caught the eight-fifteen train from Ripstead, as she had done once or twice before when rehearsals or other theatrical business had required an early arrival in London. Septimus's telegram had not only allayed no apprehension, but it had aroused a mild curiosity. Septimus was master of his own actions. His going up to London was no one's concern. If he were starting for the Equator a telegram would have been a courtesy. But why announce his arrival in London? Why couple it with Emmy's? And why in the name of guns and musical comedies should Zora worry? But when she reflected that Septimus did nothing according to the orthodox ways of men, she attributed the superfluous message to his general infirmity of character, smiled indulgently, and dismissed the matter from her mind. Mrs. Oldrieve had nothing to dismiss, as she had been led to believe that Emmy had gone up to London by the morning train. She only bewailed the flighty inconsequence of modern young women, until she reflected that Emmy's father had gone and come with disconcerting unexpectedness from the day of their wedding to that of his death on the horns of a buffalo; whereupon she fatalistically attributed her daughter's ways to heredity. So while the two incapables were sedulously covering up their tracks, the most placid indifference as to their whereabouts reigned in Nunsmere.
The telegram, therefore, announcing their marriage found Zora entirely unprepared for the news it contained. What a pitiful tragedy lay behind the words she was a million miles from suspecting. She walked with her head above such clouds, her eyes on the stars, taking little heed of the happenings around her feet—and, if the truth is to be known, finding mighty little instruction or entertainment in the firmament. The elopement, for it was nothing more, brought her eyes, however, earthwards. "Why?" she asked, not realizing it to be the most futile of questions when applied to human actions. To every such "Why?" there are a myriad answers. When a mysterious murder is committed, everyone seeks the motive. Unless circumstance unquestionably provides the key of the enigma, who can tell? It may be revenge for the foulest of wrongs. It may be that the assassin objected to the wart on the other man's nose—and there are men to whom a wart is a Pelion of rank offense, and who believe themselves heaven-appointed to cut it off. It may be for worldly gain. It may be merely for amusement. There is nothing so outrageous, so grotesque, which, if the human brain has conceived it, the human hand has not done. Many a man has taken a cab, on a sudden shower, merely to avoid the trouble of unrolling his umbrella, and the sanest of women has been known to cheat a 'bus conductor of a penny, so as to wallow in the gratification of a crossing-sweeper's blessing. When the philosopher asks the Everlasting Why, he knows, if he be a sound philosopher—and a sound philosopher is he who is not led into the grievous error of taking his philosophy seriously—that the question is but the starting point of the entertaining game of Speculation.
To this effect spake the Literary Man from London, when next he met Zora. Nunsmere was in a swarm of excitement and the alien bee had, perforce, to buzz with the rest.
"The interesting thing is," said he, "that the thing has happened. That while the inhabitants of this smug village kept one dull eye on the decalogue and another on their neighbors, Romance on its rosy pinions was hovering over it. Two people have gone the right old way of man and maid. They have defied the paralyzing conventions of the engagement. Oh! the unutterable, humiliating, deadening period! When each young person has to pass the inspection of the other's relations. When simpering friends maddeningly leave them alone in drawing-rooms and conservatories so that they can hold each other's hands. When they are on probation coram publico. Our friends have defied all this. They have defied the orange blossoms, the rice, the wedding presents, the unpleasant public affidavits, the whole indecent paraphernalia of an orthodox wedding—the bridal veil—a survival from the barbaric days when a woman was bought and paid for and a man didn't know what he had got until he had married her and taken her home—the senseless new clothes which brand them immodestly wherever they go. Two people have had the courage to avoid all this, to treat marriage as if it really concerned themselves and not Tom, Dick, and Harry. They've done it. Why, doesn't matter. All honor to them."
He waved his stick in the air—they had met on the common—and the lame donkey, who had strayed companionably near them, took to his heels in fright.
"Even the donkey," said Zora, "Mr. Dix's most intimate friend, doesn't agree with you."
"The ass will agree with the sage only in the millennium," said Rattenden.