He let her talk on. And she did so, until he was obliged to give her a gentle hint that he should be glad to be alone and get to bed. The house was awakened before it was yet dawn. Sir George had rung for his servant, had rung for Margery, had rung for the coachman to say the carriage was wanted--in short, had rung for so many, that the whole household was aroused. My lady appeared, in fur slippers and a warm dressing-gown, to know what the commotion could mean. His son Thomas was there, the knight answered. He was sure he had not dreamt it, but that Thomas _had_ come the previous night; he met him at the stile; and Thomas had promised that they should go to Ashlydyat in the early morning. It appeared he was sane enough to remember that. My lady retired, grumbling; and Margery went and called Thomas. When Thomas reached the room, Sir George was almost in the last stage of dressing. His own trembling, eager fingers had done as much towards it as his servant. He lifted his face with its ashy hue and its strange yearning. "Thomas, my son, I must hasten back to Ashlydyat. You said I should go there to die." "Do you wish to start immediately, father?" "You said I should do so!" he wailed in a tone imploringly earnest. "You said I should start with this morning's dawn." "Yes, yes," acquiesced Thomas. And he forthwith busied himself to advance the preparations. The best hour that they could leave the station was a little before nine. No train, except one much earlier, stopped at it before. This gave time to get off comfortably: though Sir George, in his impatience, could with difficulty be induced to sit down to breakfast. My lady came in when they were at the table. "This is really the most extraordinary proceeding!" she exclaimed, speaking chiefly to Thomas Godolphin. "Were such a thing related to me as taking place in another house I should decline to give credence to it. Are the hours of the day so few that you must choose the gloom of a winter's morning for commencing a journey?" Thomas glanced at Sir George, as if to draw her attention to him. "My father's anxiety will not allow him to wait, Lady Godolphin. I think it well that we should catch the first train." "I wash my hands of the journey altogether," said Lady Godolphin. "If Sir George does not reach the other end of it alive, you will have the goodness to remember that _I_ am not to blame. Far better that he were safely kept in his room wrapped up in his dressing-gown in front of a good fire." "In that case, my lady, I would not answer for it that he reached the end of the day alive," interposed Margery, who was in and out of the room busier than any of them. "Whether Sir George stays, or whether he goes, he'll not last many days," she added in a lower tone, so that it might not reach her master's ear. "If I must have gone, I would have started at a Christian hour, Sir George," resumed his wife. "Getting us all out of bed as if we were so many milkmaids?"