"Well, ma'am, if that's what you want, to go back where you belong, you shall go, though an army stood in the way," cried Grover, with such goodwill that Virgie flung her arms round her again, this time to meet with a warm response. Then she slid out of bed, and stood, her arms outstretched, making graceful motions to show that she was strong and vigorous. "I am a horrid little cheat," she said, smiling. "I am afraid I tried to make mother think I was feeling very bad, so that she might not be afraid to go off by the early train and leave me! Grover, I have looked up all the trains. You must pack to-night, and we can get to town by one o'clock. We must go straight through; there is a train with a dining-car, getting us to Derby at 6:34, and we can wire for the car to meet us. I hope I am not being very silly, but it seems to me the only way to get free of it all. Another thing is the parting from Pansy. I shall go without saying anything at all to her, and leave a letter for her. She is so happy here, she will not really miss me, and it will save her a bad fit of crying if I slip away. Me, too, for that matter," she added, colouring. "I can't help feeling the parting, you know, Grover." "That I well believe, ma'am, but it is for a time. She is doing so nicely that she will be able to come to Omberleigh before long, and think how she will enjoy lying on the terrace and playing with Cosmo and Damian." Virgie had to laugh, though a pang shot through her heart. Little did this good, loyal Grover know the dreadful truth! At the thought of the malice that awaited her, the unknown suffering in store, she flinched, and for a moment felt faint. Then she rallied. This precipitate flight was, she knew, her only chance of preserving her self-respect. When Gerald returned, it would all be different somehow. Now, before she had time to think, she must make her dash for duty. What she had said in her delirium she knew not; but she knew well enough that, during those confidential moments, seated in the field below the Roman Villa, she had admitted her marital unhappiness, and that Gerald had understood. "I can't understand one thing," she said, as she lay watching Grover draw out her trunk, open it, and begin her packing methodically. "And that is, why Mr. Gaunt has not written to me since I took my chill." "I think I can tell you, ma'am. It is because your letters to him have been stopped." "Grover!" "If, when we get home, ma'am, you find that he has had the letter you wrote this afternoon, why, I'll beg your mamma's pardon for what I have said. But I am sure she opened it, and I don't believe she ever sent it to post. Another thing, ma'am. Muriel (the lodging-house maid) told me that Mrs. Mynors had a letter with the Manton postmark yesterday. Why didn't she tell you she had heard?"