"She is gone to London," she said to herself; "that means that she will
sleep there--that she will not leave till to-morrow, wherever she is
going. It has all been planned out. She got rid of Dennis because
Dennis might have asked questions. Lea Abbey was only one of the
details, and now she is in London. Well, I shall go there, too!"
She crumpled the letter, and went quickly into the corridor. The
nursery-maid was in a room a little further along.
"Please stay with the children," said Caroline; "I am going downstairs."
She ran down to the hall, and sought and found a railway guide. All at
once she remembered that a guest who had once been summoned away very
hurriedly from Yelverton at night had caught a train at some junction a
little distance away. By so doing he had reached London at a very early
hour.
Caroline decided to follow his course. The express paused at Swaile
Junction somewhere before four o'clock, but she would start off now.
To have to sit there and wait till the Brentons came back, and to go
into explanations was utterly beyond her. Besides, she felt half afraid
that Mrs. Brenton might try to dissuade her from going, and Caroline
could not endure that. It was not only the woman who called to her, it
was the man who loved this woman--the man whom she loved herself--who
seemed to clamour to her to stand between Camilla and what she intended
to do.
She scribbled an explanation to Agnes Brenton, and slipped Camilla's
letter inside.
"It may be only a chance," she wrote; "but I cannot help feeling that I
shall find her in London. She will never dream that one of us would
follow her, and if human hands can drag her back from this miserable
mistake, I want mine to be the hands to do it."
She intended to keep Dennis in ignorance of her going, but she took one
of the other maids into her confidence.
"Don't let there be any fuss," she said, "but I must get up to London
as quickly as I can. I am sorry not to wait for Mrs. Brenton, but you
will give her that letter. Can you manage to keep Dennis downstairs
while I run up and slip on my hat and coat?"
"Yes, miss, of course. But where are you going from, there's no trains
now, miss?"
"There is a train that stops at Swaile Junction somewhere between three
and four, I am going to catch that."
"Swaile," said the maid; "but that's miles away, miss. How will you go?"
"Quite easily," said Caroline. "I am going to walk."
"But you'll never do it, miss. It's much too far."
"Don't talk rubbish," said Caroline, quickly. "I can walk ten, fifteen,
twenty, twenty-five, or even thirty miles, if needs be. Walking does
not hurt me."
As she ran down again she glanced at the clock. It was a quarter to
eleven. There was ample time, although she would have to keep to the
roads, because she did not know any short cut. The idea that she should
be frightened amused her in a way.
"If anybody hits me, I shall hit back," she said to herself, as she
gripped her umbrella and started forth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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