She put a few things together, drank a cup of tea brought to her room, went to her father and received the cheque, and was ready by the time the brougham came to the door with a pair of horses. She would not look at her mother again lest she might be sufficiently revived to wonder where she was going, but hastened down, and saw no one on the way. One of the servants was in the hall, and opened the carriage-door for her. The moment it closed she was on her way through the gathering dusk to the railway station. While the lodge-gate was being opened, she thought she saw some one get up on the box beside the coachman, and fancied it must be a groom going with them. The drive was a long and anxious one; it seemed to her all the time as if the horses could not get on. In spots the road was slippery, and as the horses were not roughed they had to go slowly, and parts were very heavy. What might not be happening to Corney, she thought, while she was on the way to his rescue! She kept fancying one dreadful thing after another. It was like a terrible dream, only with the assurance of reality in it. The carriage stopped, the door opened, and there was the major in a huge fur coat, holding out his hand to help her down. It was as great a pleasure as surprise, and she showed both. "You didn't think I was going to let you travel alone?" he said. "Who knows what wolf might be after my Red riding-hood! I'll go in another carriage of course if you wish it; but in this train I'm going to London." Hester told him she was only too glad of his escort. Careful not to seem in the least bent on the discovery of the cause of her journey, he seated himself in the farthest corner, for there was no one else in the carriage, and pretended to go to sleep. And now first began Hester's private share in the general misery of the family. In the presence of her suffering father and mother, she put off looking into the mist that kept gathering deeper and deeper, filled with forms undefined, about herself. Now these forms began to reveal themselves in shifting yet recognizable reality. If this miserable affair should be successfully hushed up, there was yet one must know it: she must immediately acquaint lord Gartley with what had taken place! And therewith one of the shapes in the mist settled into solidity: if the love between them had been of an ideal character, would she have had a moment's anxiety as to how her lover would receive the painful news? But therewith her own mind was made up: if he but hesitated, that would be enough! Nothing could make her marry a man who had once hesitated whether to draw back or not. It was impossible. CHAPTER XXXV. IN LONDON.