When she was in her carriage she looked at her watch. There was a train for the West leaving within the hour. She drove to the station, dismissed her carriage, then, buying her ticket, sat down to wait, feeling that she had consummated the act of madness. She wondered what General Talbott would think of her, whether she went or whether she stayed. No thought of Sir Percy Carlyon or Colegrove entered her mind. When the train was called she found a porter to carry her bag and walked through the gate. Then the habit of a lifetime made one last desperate effort; she walked back through another gate and called a cab, firmly resolving to go home. She got as far as the door of the station, and then, glancing at the clock, saw that there was still one minute before the train left. She turned and ran the length of the station through the gate towards the train, which was just about to move. The conductor, seeing her running towards it, caught her deftly by the arm and put her aboard, stepping after her himself. The porter found her a seat, and Alicia sank into it breathless and bewildered. "I may yet turn back," she said to herself. "It is impossible that this impulse will hold out long enough for me to reach my husband." At eight o’clock that evening, as General Talbott was leaving his room for dinner, the footman put Alicia’s note into his hands. He was an old man and things shook him as they had not done in the days when Sir Percy Carlyon thought him the most resolute of men. Nevertheless he maintained enough composure to say coolly to the servant: "Your mistress has been suddenly called out of town, and may be absent a week or two." Then he went down to dinner. When it was over, he did what an Englishman regards as an act of emergency--went out for an evening visit. He rang the bell of the British Embassy, asked to see Sir Percy Carlyon, and was shown into the library. When his card was handed to Sir Percy, who was taking his coffee with Lady Carlyon in the drawing-room, he said to her, growing a little pale: "It is General Talbott; it would be best for me to see him alone." They both thought that this meant another step in Alicia March’s programme to ruin Sir Percy Carlyon. Sir Percy went into the library, and as soon as he had shaken hands General Talbott silently handed him Alicia’s note. Sir Percy studied it attentively. He knew Alicia quite as well as she knew herself, and was as much astounded as she was at her action. Likewise he was incredulous that she should carry it through. "It is four or five days’ journey to the region where Roger March is," said Sir Percy to General Talbott, "and Mrs. March may change her mind in the meantime."