"Why, of course there's not: as you know, or ought to know. Besides, he could not get through the business he has gone upon and be back yet, unless he came by telegraph. He intended to leave by the eleven o'clock train from Paddington." She spoke rapidly, thoughtlessly, in her surprise. Her inward thought was, that to have gone to London, and returned again since the hour at which she parted from him the previous night, one way, at least, must have been accomplished on the telegraph wires. Had she taken a moment for reflection, she would not have so spoken. However familiar she might be with the affairs of Mr. George Godolphin, so much the more reason was there for her shunning open allusion to them. "Who told you Mr. George Godolphin had gone to London, Mrs. Pain?" asked Isaac, after a pause. "Do you think I did not know it? Better than you, Mr. Isaac, clever and wise as you deem yourself." "I pretend to be neither one nor the other with regard to the movements of Mr. George Godolphin," was the reply of Isaac. "It is not my place to be so. I heard he had only gone a stage or two towards Portsmouth with a sick friend. Of course if you know he has gone to London, that is a different matter. I can't stay now, Mrs. Pain: I have a message for Mr. Godolphin." "Then he is not back again?" cried Charlotte, as Isaac was going through the turnstile. "Not yet." Charlotte looked after him as he went out of sight, and bit her lips. A doubt was flashing over her--called up by Isaac's last observation--as to whether she had done right to allude to London. When George had been with her, discussing it, he had wondered what excuse he should invent for taking the journey, and Charlotte never supposed but that it would be known. The bright idea of starting on a benevolent excursion towards Portsmouth, had been an after-thought of Mr. George's as he journeyed home. "If I have done mischief," Charlotte was beginning slowly to murmur. But she threw back her head defiantly. "Oh, nonsense about mischief! What does it matter? George can battle it out." Thomas Godolphin was at breakfast in his own room, his face, pale and worn, bearing traces of suffering. Isaac Hastings was admitted, and explained the cause of his appearance. Thomas received the news of George's absence with considerable surprise. "He left me late last night--_in_ the night, I may say--to return home. He said nothing then of his intention to be absent. Where do you say he has gone to?" "Maria delivered a message to me, sir, from him, to the effect that he had accompanied a sick friend, Captain St. Aubyn, a few miles on the Portsmouth line," replied Isaac. "But Mrs. Pain, whom I have just met, says it is to London that he has gone: she says she knows it."