“I suppose there is no train to Ayresford to-night?” she asked steadily.
“Yes. The ten o'clock. A fast train. I am going down by it.”
“You would have no objection to my accompanying you?”
“That my father needs you is enough for me to entreat you to come.”
“Very well. I shall drive to Waterloo and wait there until the train starts.”
“And I in the mean time must do some necessary business.”
He gave the direction to the driver and the cab drove off. He hailed another and was carried rapidly westward.
When the time came for taking her seat at Waterloo in the Ayresford train, she mechanically followed a porter to an empty first-class carriage and sat down in a further corner, broken with trouble. She was only awakened to a sense of surroundings by the door being thrown violently open as soon as the train began to move, and a man whom she recognised as Sylvester leaping into the compartment. He sat for a moment breathless, then moved up the seat.
“I did not mean to intrude on you,” he said, when he had recovered; “but I nearly missed the train, and this was the first carriage to hand.”
She looked out of the window into the whirling darkness.