The train stopped at Preston, and then rushed north again as I sat alone in the corner of the carriage thinking deeply, and wondering who was this man Rumbold.
At Carlisle another surprise was in store for me, for I found a hurried note from Sybil saying that she had unfortunately been recognised by a friend and compelled to leave. She had gone on to Glasgow, and would await me there at the Central Station Hotel. Therefore, by the Scotch express at two o’clock that morning I travelled up to Glasgow, and on arrival found to my chagrin that she had stayed there one night, and again left. There was a note for me, saying that she had gone to Dumfries, but that it would be best for me not to follow.
“Return to Newcastle and await me,” she wrote. “My quick movements are imperative for my own safety. I cannot tell you in a letter what has happened, but will explain all when we meet.”
“By what train did the lady leave?” I inquired of the hall-porter who had handed me the letter.
“The six-twenty last night, sir,” was the man’s answer. “I got her ticket—a first-class one to Fort William.”
“Then she went north—not south,” I exclaimed, surprised.
“Of course.”
Sybil had misled me in her letter by saying that she had gone to Dumfries, when really she had travelled in the opposite direction. She had purposely misled me.
“The lady left hurriedly, it would appear.”
“Yes, sir. About five o’clock a gentleman called to see her, and she met him in the hall. She was very pale, I noticed, as though she was surprised at his visit, or rather upset. But they went out together. She returned an hour later, wrote this letter, which she told me to give to you if you called, and then left for Fort William.”