In Which the Pilgrimage Ends Where It Began We did not go to Mayberry that day. We went to London and to the hotel; not Bancroft's, but the hotel where Hephzy and I had stayed the previous night. It was Frances' wish that we should not go to Bancroft's. “I don't think that I could go there, Kent,” she whispered to me, on the train. “Mr. and Mrs Jameson were very kind, and I liked them so much, but--but they would ask questions; they wouldn't understand. It would be hard to make them understand. Don't you see, Kent?” I saw perfectly. Considering that the Jamesons believed Miss Morley to be my niece, it would indeed be hard to make them understand. I was not inclined to try. I had had quite enough of the uncle and niece business. So we went to the other hotel and if the clerk was surprised to see us again so soon he said nothing about it. Perhaps he was not surprised. It must take a good deal to surprise a hotel clerk. On the train, in our compartment--a first-class compartment, you may be sure; I would have hired the whole train if it had been necessary; there was nothing too good or too expensive for us that afternoon--on the train, discussing the ride to London, Hephzy did most of the talking. I was too happy to talk much and Frances, sitting in her corner and pretending to look out of the window, was silent also. I should have been fearful that she was not happy, that she was already repenting her rashness in promising to marry the Bayport “quahaug,” but occasionally she looked at me, and, whenever she did, the wireless message our eyes exchanged, sent that quahaug aloft on a flight through paradise. A flying clam is an unusual specimen, I admit, but no other quahaug in this wide, wide world had an excuse like mine for developing wings. Hephzy did not appear to notice our silence. She chatted and laughed continuously. We had not told her our secret--the great secret--and if she suspected it she kept her suspicions to herself. Her chatter was a curious mixture: triumph over the detached Crippses; joy because, after all, “Little Frank” had consented to come with us, to live with us again; and triumph over me because her dreams and presentiments had come true. “I told you, Hosy,” she kept saying. “I told you! I said it would all come out in the end. He wouldn't believe it, Frances. He said I was an old lunatic and--” “I didn't say anything of the kind,” I broke in. “You said what amounted to that and I don't know as I blame you. But I knew--I just KNEW he and I had been 'sent' on this course and that we--all three of us--would make the right port in the end. And we have--we have, haven't we, Frances?” “Yes,” said Frances, simply. “We have, Auntie--” “There! do you hear that, Hosy? Isn't it good to hear her call me 'Auntie' again! Now I'm satisfied; or”--with a momentary hesitation--“pretty nearly satisfied, anyway.” “Oh, then you're not quite satisfied, after all,” I observed. “What more do you want?”