As Sarah carries the dressing bag out, it flies open, and something falls at Mrs. Mounteagle's feet.
She picks it up.
It is a photograph of Carol Quinton.
"You must have that lock secured," she says laughing, "or buy a strap."
Eleanor colours, and hides the photograph in her muff.
"Good-bye, Giddy."
"Take care of yourself, my sweet," returning Eleanor's caress. "I have no doubt it will be very merry and jolly in the country," with a little grimace that means it won't.
But Mrs. Roche cares not to what corner of the globe she is travelling as the train bears her to Copthorne. She is too utterly miserable to notice places or seasons. She just sits by the window, and stares at the picture she has drawn from her muff, from which the eyes of Carol Quinton look pleadingly in hers.
"I wish I could bury myself," she thinks, her mind turning to Africa—America—Asia—any of the far-off worlds she has read of in geography books and fiction. "I wish I were someone else, or even the old Eleanor that Philip stole from Copthorne Farm. Why did he not leave me there? It would have been far better for us both!"
An elderly woman seated opposite glances at Eleanor over her paper, struck by the strange pallor of the young face, the nervous twitching of the mouth, and tear-dimmed eyes.