Fortunately she had had no expenses in Switzerland, and still carried
about her the eighteen five pound notes which Bridget had counselled her
not to leave behind. In her purse she had also an English sovereign and
a little Swiss silver money. “I need not change a note till I get
to Geneva, that is a comfort,” she reflected, and having carefully
destroyed all her letters and packed a few necessaries into her bag, she
crept to bed and did her best to sleep, but not very successfully.
The next morning she could most truthfully plead a headache as an excuse
for not attending Lady Mount Pleasant’s picnic, indeed she remained in
bed; and looked so white and tired when Janet and Minnie came to see her
that they reported her as quite unfit for the expedition, and only in a
state to be left quiet and alone.
“Well,” said Sir Matthew, with a look of annoyance, “it can’t be
helped. She will be right enough to-morrow when her decision is made and
everything has settled down quietly.”
Bruce Wylie, who had fully intended to settle matters during the course
of that day, was forced to acquiesce, and since Lady Mount Pleasant and
her contingent had arrived from Montreux, and the carriages were at the
door, there was no time for further discussion.
Evereld stole to her window as soon as she heard the sound of wheels and
just caught a sideway glimpse of the picnic party driving off. Then in
breathless haste she dressed, put a letter which she had written to
Sir Matthew on the previous night in a place where it would quickly be
found, bolted her door on the inner side, stepped out of the window and
closed both it and the jalousies behind her and went through Minnie’s
room to the corridor beyond. A chambermaid was sweeping the matting, she
smiled in a friendly fashion and asked if mademoiselle was better.
“I still have a headache,” said Evereld, “and am going out of doors. If
you see Miss Mactavish to-night when she returns, please say I do not
wish to be disturbed.”
She ran quickly down the stairs, encountering nobody; in the bureau she
caught sight of the manager’s head, but he had his back turned to the
door and did not see her, he was giving out a library book to an old
lady who was accounted the greatest gossip in Glion. Mercifully she,
too, was absorbed and did not look up.
Evereld walked quietly through the garden; over her dark blue serge
dress she wore a little blue capuchin cape with red-lined hood, her
sailor hat, and long gauze travelling veil were of the quietest. She was
beginning to hope that she should encounter none of the people staying
in the hotel when, within a stone’s throw of the cable railway station,
she came across Dick Lewisham and little Miss Upton.
“Are you better?” said the American kindly. “Your friends told us you
were quite knocked up and could not go to the picnic.”
“My head aches still,” said Evereld, “but--but please don’t tell them
that you saw me going out.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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