Mrs. Elles took a ticket for London. The train was due to leave in ten minutes. She was out of breath and felt the compromising colour mounting to her cheeks under her thick white veil. The young poet was on the platform, apparently seeing Miss Drummond off. Phœbe Elles smiled at the little love drama here developing. It would have been hers to further it if she had been staying at home, for she was a born matchmaker with a very kind heart and dearly loved helping people, from a variety of motives. But for the moment she had something else to do. She got quickly into her carriage. The poet had glanced at her, but had, of course, soon averted his gaze from such an uninteresting object as the pretty Mrs. Elles now presented. Atalanta Drummond was probably only going as far as Darlington, where, as everybody knew, she had relations. But still her presence in the same train was a dangerous and delightful fact. Mrs. Elles felt all the exhilaration of a superior criminal evading the pursuit of justice and forthwith planned to play an exciting game of hide-and-seek with her unwitting fellow-traveller. She would manœuvre the most carefully-arranged, hair-breadth escapes from the unconscious pursuer. How nice it was to be running away, so to speak, and how it at once removed everything from the region of the commonplace! She got out of her carriage at Darlington, and looked about the great station. She was one of those persons in whom the mere sight of a telegraph office immediately inspires a desire to send a message of some sort, and she at once went into the bureau and proceeded to compose a wire to Mortimer. “Gone away for the present; do not be anxious about me. Phœbe.” Then she crossed out “for the present” and substituted “for a change.” “I don’t want him to be dragging the Tyne for me!” she thought. “That is, if his affection for me should prompt him to such an extreme course, which I do not think it would.” When she got back to her carriage, a porter was engaged in putting some effects into the rack, which she at once recognized as belonging to Miss Drummond. In spite of her plans, terror then filled her soul. Had that young lady recognized her? Was she intending to join her for the pleasure of her company? Or was it only because this was a through carriage to London? The poor, hunted creature dared not stay to ascertain, but, seizing her bag, jumped out and searched wildly for another compartment. She was bewildered and uncertain. Nobody helped her or took any interest in her, because she was unattractive, so she thought, and the end of it was that the London train moved on without her, as trains will. She watched it steaming out of the station, but she was far too much excited to care. There happened to be another train, just like it, on the other side of the station, about to go westwards to Barnard Castle.