The groom nodded in comprehension, and Esther went back to the house and to her own room. She ought at that time of day to have been eating her dinner with the rest of the upper servants, but she had work to do which was of much more importance than the consumption of food and drink. There was going to be a flight that afternoon--but it would not be Pratt who would undertake it. Esther Mawson had carefully calculated all her chances as soon as Pratt told her that he was going to be away for a while. She knew that Pratt would not have left Barford for any indefinite period unless something had gone seriously wrong. But she knew more--by inference and intuition. If Pratt was going away--rather, since he was going away, he would have on his person things of value--documents, money. She meant to gain possession of everything that he had; she meant to have a brief interview with Mrs. Mallathorpe; then she meant to drive to Scaleby--and to leave that part of the country just as thoroughly and completely as Pratt had meant to leave it. And now in her own room she was completing her preparations. There was little to do. She knew that if her venture came off successfully, she could easily afford to leave her personal possessions behind her, and that she would be all the more free and unrestricted in her movements if she departed without as much as a change of clothes and linen. And so by two o'clock she had arrayed herself in a neat and unobtrusive tailor-made travelling costume, had put on an equally neat and plain hat, had rolled her umbrella, and laid it, her gloves, and a cloak where they could be readily picked up, and had attached to her slim waist a hand-bag--by means of a steel chain which she secured by a small padlock as soon as she had arranged it to her satisfaction. She was not the sort of woman to leave a hand-bag lying about in a railway carriage at any time, but in this particular instance she was not going to run any risk of even a moment's forgetfulness. Everything was in readiness by twenty minutes past two, and she took up her position in a window from which she could see the front door of the house. At half-past two the carriage and its two fine bay horses came round from the stables; a minute or two later Nesta Mallathorpe emerged from the hall; yet another minute and the carriage was whirling down the park in the direction of Barford. And then Esther moved from the window, picked up the umbrella, the cloak, the gloves, and went off in the direction of the room wherein she had left Pratt.