So that it was with a light Heart that she finally started on her journey to London to stay with the Brabazons. Eliot saw her off at the station. "If you stop a day longer than a fortnight I shall come and fetch you back," he informed her despotically. "I'm not going to spare my girl to any one for more than two weeks. And I grudge even that." And Ann, leaning out of the carriage window and waving her hand to the tall, beloved figure on the platform, felt no premonition, was conscious of no ominous foreboding that the train which was bearing her so swiftly away from him was actually carrying her straight towards the very danger from which she felt so sure she had escaped. In the patch of brilliant sunshine which lay all about her, the grey shadow had paled until it had become almost imperceptible. But it was still there--only waiting for the sun to move a little in the heavens to fling itself blackly across her path once more. CHAPTER XXX THE KEEPING OF A PROMISE Her first two or three days at the tall grey house in Audley Square sufficed to indicate to Ann that all was not going well there, Sir Philip had welcomed her warmly enough, and when she descended to breakfast on the morning after her arrival she found an envelope on her plate containing his cheque for two hundred pounds, together with a brief intimation that it was intended to "help towards the trousseau." But, apart from the bestowal of this signal mark of favour, Ann found her godfather's behaviour extremely difficult to understand. It was usually his custom to treat her with a species of crusty amiability, but, on this occasion, after the first warmth of his welcome had evaporated, she found that the crustiness became much more in evidence and the amiability conspicuously lacking. The old man was extraordinarily irritable, both towards her and towards Tony. It was as though he were labouring under a secret strain--prey to some anxiety which he was stubbornly bent on keeping to himself. Tony also, Ann observed, seemed to be living at high pressure of some kind. He was moody and restless, and unless some theatre or other plan had been proposed by his uncle he usually disappeared soon after dinner, and she saw him no more until the following morning. It was all very unlike any previous visit which she had paid to the house at Audley Square. Formerly, if Sir Philip had felt disinclined to go out in an evening, Tony had always been eager with suggestions for their visitor's amusement, and many had been the occasions on which he and Ann had dined gaily at some little restaurant and gone on afterwards to a dance or theatre alone together.