And you could see it a hundred times a day when our tour began. Any excuse to slip away and be together. When I suggested a _détour_ to call on Sir Charles Spokeleigh, I was told at once that Captain Laughton did not know him and that Kathleen disliked his wife--or had a head-ache, I forget which. Kathleen always had a head-ache if one suggested a little constitutional before dinner. And Captain Laughton insisted on staying behind with her. There was no great harm, perhaps, in an out-of-the-way village which had escaped the contamination of the London press, but in places like Dorchester, Gloucester, Hereford... One was known; the papers would announce us among the new arrivals: "Lady Spenworth, Lady Ann Spenworth, Captain Laughton..." and so on and so forth. They could not afford to take the slightest risk. If I had yielded to their entreaties and then the car had broken down... The King's Proctor or whoever he is would never believe that it was an accident and that they were truly innocent. There would be the record in the register of the hotel... I am thankful to say that we were spared all catastrophes; and I frankly enjoyed the tour, though it was impossible to escape a feeling of conspiracy. The only hitch occurred at the end as we came within thirty miles of Brackenbury. The roads there are not all that could be desired, and I should not have contemplated for a moment the cross-country journey, were it not that I saw an opportunity of healing the unhappy breach with my niece Phyllida. At present she is so terribly and unjustly bitter that there is nothing she will not believe and say. It occurred to me that, if I, the older woman, made the first advance... A gracious phrase or two, telling her that I could not pass her home--my _old_ home--with the feeling that any rancour remained... You understand. It is always worth a little inconvenience to be gracious... And she had been speaking quite wickedly about me... We lunched that day at Norton and had arranged to sleep at Rugely. I need hardly say that, when I suggested a _détour_ to Brackenbury--an extra forty miles at most--, Kathleen discovered that she was tired out and Captain Laughton trumped up his usual excuse that he didn't know my brother and disliked "butting in" on strangers... Ridiculous! I've never met a man more completely self-possessed... For once I broke my rule and said that they might go on by themselves and order rooms for us in Rugely. They would leave a note for us at the General Post Office to say where we should meet them. "Drive carefully!," Captain Laughton called out, as we started from Norton. "It will be the devil and all, if anything happens to you."