herself, that she suddenly exclaimed:
“Where can Philippa be, mamma? I haven’t seen her since breakfast.”
Mrs Raynsworth glanced round with an air of annoyance.
“I have no idea,” she said. “She is certainly not with your father. What was it she was saying last night about not going to the station with you?”
“Oh, just that she couldn’t go; she has some mysterious engagement. But she might at least have said good-bye first.”
“It is so unlike her,” replied the mother. “And somehow I didn’t take it in, otherwise I would have got ready to see you off myself.”
“Oh, I don’t mind that part of it in the least,” said Evelyn. “It’s not as if it were a big crowded station. But tell Philippa, all the same, that I don’t understand her going off like that. Now, good-bye, dear mamma, and don’t worry about me. I shall be all right if I get good news of the children, and you or Phil will write every day, I’m sure – a mere word would be enough.”
“Yes, dear, of course we shall,” replied Mrs Raynsworth, reassuringly, though her face had a more anxious expression than usual. “I won’t ask you to write every day,” she went on, “for I know how tiresome it is to feel bound to do so when one is staying with people. Only let us know of your arrival as soon as you can, and say how you are.”
She stood watching the fly as it made its way down the short drive, waving her hand in response to Evelyn’s last smile and nod. Then she went slowly back into the house.
“I couldn’t have said anything to disturb Evelyn just as she was starting,” she thought to herself, “but I really do think Philippa is behaving most extraordinarily. I hope these very independent ways of hers are not the result of her visit to Dorriford. I wonder, by-the-by, if Dorcas knows where she is gone.”
But, strange to say, Dorcas was not to be found in any of her usual haunts, though one of the under-servants said she had seen her not five minutes before, up-stairs in Miss Philippa’s room. Tired and somewhat depressed, though she scarcely knew why, Mrs Raynsworth sat down in the drawing-room with a vague intention of writing a letter or otherwise employing herself usefully, but contrary to her usual habits, more than an hour passed before she exerted herself to do anything but gaze dreamily out of the window, where the now fast-falling leaves were whirling about fantastically in the breeze.
“I feel as if I were waiting for something, though for what I don’t know,” she thought, and it was with a start of surprise that the clock, striking one, caught her ear. “Dear me, how idle I have been – one o’clock! Evelyn must be well on her way by this. I wonder when Philippa intends to come in?”
Just then the door opened and Dorcas appeared. She carried a salver in her hand, and on it lay a letter.
“If you please, ma’am,” the old servant began, “Miss Philippa wished me to give you this at one o’clock, but not before. I don’t know what it’s about, I don’t, indeed,” she added, anxiously, “but I do hope there’s nothing wrong.”
Her words were well intended, but they only served to sharpen the uneasiness which Mrs Raynsworth was already feeling. Her face grew pale, and her heart beat painfully fast as she took hold of the envelope.
“A letter, and from Philippa!” she exclaimed; “what can it mean? No, don’t go away, Dorcas,” though the old servant had shown no sign of doing so. “If – if there is anything wrong,” – though what could have been wrong she would have been at a loss to say – “I must keep calm. Don’t go till I see what it is.” And with trembling fingers she opened the letter.
For Philippa had been preoccupied and unlike herself the night before, and even this very morning, there was no denying.
Chapter Four
Fellow-Travellers
In the meantime all had progressed smoothly with Mrs Headfort.
The train was already in the station when she and her boxes found themselves on the platform, for Marlby was a terminus in its small way. It lay about an hour off the main line, and as express trains do not always wait the arrival of small local ones, departures from Marlby for the junction were characterised by most praiseworthy punctuality, any wafting that might occur being pretty sure to take place at Wrexhill junction itself.
But to-day the express proved worthy of its name, barely five minutes having been passed at the big station before Evelyn found herself re-established in her favourite corner of a first-class compartment, otherwise empty, of the train.
“Now I shall feel settled,” she said to herself, with satisfaction, “no more changes till I get almost to my journey’s end. I do hope nobody will get in. I wish I could go to sleep and then I should feel fresh on arriving, and I never like to shut my eyes with strangers in the carriage – for one thing, one looks so silly; I’ve often laughed at other people. I wish the train would start – oh, dear,” – as at that moment the door opened to admit a new-comer – “what a bother!” and as she made this mental ejaculation the train began to move.
“How rash of her!” thought Mrs Headfort, glancing at the intruder, whose back for the moment was turned towards her.
She was a tall, slender woman, neatly but simply dressed in black, young too, as far as Mrs Headfort’s present chances of observation could decide. “She looks like a maid – she must have got in first-class by mistake sorely,” but at this point in her reflections the black-robed figure turned, calmly seating herself opposite Evelyn, and lifting the thick veil she wore, disclosed to the gazer’s astonished eyes the face of her sister Philippa!
Mrs Headfort grew pale – more than pale indeed, perfectly white – and uttered a faint scream. For the moment, in the confusion of ideas always engendered by the utterly unexpected, she really felt as if she had seen a ghost. It was impossible for her at once to grasp the fact that before her was indeed her sister, a flesh-and-blood Philippa. She could scarcely have been more amazed had the figure in front of her proceeded to dissolve into thin air and disappear! And the effect on the girl herself of her sister’s agitation was for an instant paralysing. Any enjoyment she had anticipated in this coup d’état, any thought of “fun” completely faded. She felt so terrified and startled at the effect upon Evelyn of what she had imagined would cause at the most but a start of surprise, and probably some vehement remonstrance, that she was utterly unable to speak. Only, when at length – or what seemed at length, for in reality not twenty seconds had passed since the new-comer had revealed herself – Evelyn’s pale lips murmured with a gasp, “Philippa!” did her own power of utterance return to her.
“Evey, Evey,” she exclaimed, “don’t look like that I never thought you would be so frightened. I – I thought that on the whole you’d be pleased.”
The distress in Philippa’s face touched her sister. She tried to smile, and the effort brought some colour back again to her pale face.
“It was silly of me,” she said at last, “but I don’t understand! Did you mean to come with me to Wrexhill? Oh, no, I forgot, we have passed it; we shall not stop again till Crowminster, ever so far away. Philippa, what are you thinking of?” and again her face grew very troubled.
“Of course I know we don’t stop for ever so long,” said Philippa, trying to speak easily. “I looked it all out in the railway guide; that was why I wouldn’t let you know I was in the train till after we had passed the junction. It’s too late to send me back now, Evey; the trains don’t match in the
