He looked at her with a countenance much paler and more agitated than her own, and, with that uneasy air of deprecation natural to a man who has a confession to make. “No one did; or, indeed, does,” he said, “not even my mother. I got my promotion quite suddenly, and insisted upon a few days’ leave to see my friends before I joined my ship.” “I congratulate you,” said Mrs. Damerel, putting heroic force upon herself. “I suppose, then, I should have said Captain Wodehouse? How pleased your mother will be!” “Yes,” he said, abstractedly. “I should not, as you may suppose, have taken the liberty to come here so early merely to tell you a piece of news concerning myself. I came up from Portsmouth during the night, and when the train stopped at this station--by accident--Miss Damerel got into the same carriage in which I was. She charged me with this note to give to you.” There was a sensation in Mrs. Damerel’s ears as if some sluice had given way in the secrecy of her heart, and the blood was surging and swelling upwards. But she managed to smile a ghastly smile at him, and to take the note without further display of her feelings. It was a little twisted note written in pencil, which Wodehouse, indeed, had with much trouble persuaded Rose to write. Her mother opened it with fingers trembling so much that the undoing of the scrap of paper was a positive labor to her. She dropped softly into a chair, however, with a great and instantaneous sense of relief, the moment she had read these few pencilled words:-- “Mamma, I have gone to Miss Margetts’. I am very wretched, and don’t know what to do. I could not stay at home any longer. Do not be angry. I think my heart will break.” Mrs. Damerel did not notice these pathetic words. She saw “Miss Margetts,” and that was enough for her. Her blood resumed its usual current, her heart began to beat less violently. She felt, as she leant back in her chair, exhausted and weak with the agitation of the morning; weak as one only feels when the immediate pressure is over. Miss Margetts was the school-mistress with whom Rose had received her education. No harm to Rose, nor her reputation, could come did all the world know she was there. She was so much and instantaneously relieved, that her watchfulness over herself intermitted, and she did not speak for a minute or two. She roused herself up with a little start when she caught Wodehouse’s eye gravely fixed upon her. “Thanks,” she said; “I am glad to have this little note, telling me of Rose’s safe arrival with her friends in London. It was very good of you to bring it. I do not know what put it into the child’s head to go by that early train.” “Whatever it was, it was very fortunate for me,” said Edward. “As we had met by such a strange chance I took the liberty of seeing her safe to Miss Margetts’ house.”