She only nodded, resuming the occupation, from which she had turned for a moment, of drying her child's wet socks at the lately-kindled fire. Picard caught the boy in his arms and smothered him with kisses; then replacing him in his mother's lap, took his departure without another word. "Where's he going?" said Gustave, making a plunge, to land barefooted on the floor. "He's going away, dear," answered Jin, much pre-occupied, and scorching the socks against the bars of the grate. "And we're going away too. Don't you want to go away from this nasty room?" "I want to go to Moley," answered the boy, in a sing-song that frequent repetition on the river had rendered mechanical. "And I want my tupper," he added, brightening up at so happy an afterthought. But he couldn't eat his supper when it came; and now that his things were dry, Miss Ross was glad to hush him off to rest in her arms. When he was sound asleep she rang the bell gently. "I am going out for an hour," said she to the waiter. "If anybody calls, say that tea is ordered to be ready when I come back." Then she walked away in the pouring rain, and beckoned a flyman from the stand. "Drive to The Lilies," she said in a loud voice. "Shut those glasses, and make haste." But as soon as they were clear of the town she reversed her sailing orders, and directed the man to proceed to Staines. Arriving at the station, she found by a time-table that an up-train was due in five minutes. "What do you charge for waiting?" asked Miss Ross, as the driver let her out. The man informed and overcharged her. "Then wait here for the down-train in an hour," said she, paying him liberally. "If you don't get a fare you can then drive back to Windsor; but I shall desire the station-master to see that you remain here on the chance." So, hushing Gustave, who, considering he seemed so sleepy, was strangely restless, Miss Ross took her place in the train, to be whirled to town with the comfortable reflection that, till her fly returned to Windsor, in two hours time, it would be impossible for Frank Vanguard to obtain any trace of her, while she herself would be in the labyrinth of London in forty minutes. She pulled the double veil from her pocket, and dropped it over her face, while she rocked the boy tenderly on her knee. It was well for him to have this protection, for Gustave did not need another wetting, and his mother was crying as if her heart would break. Thus it fell out that Frank, flying on the wings of love and a thorough-bred hack from his duty at the barracks to his affianced at the Castle Hotel, found nothing there but a black fire, an empty room, and a waiter's assurance that "the lady would be back in less than half-an-hour. She'd been gone longer nor that already."