Swithin informed her that her brother had taken a ticket for Warborne,
and she at once perceived that he was going on to visit her at Welland,
though from his letter she had not expected him so soon by a few days.
'Meanwhile,' continued Swithin, 'you can now get home only by the late
train, having missed that one.' 'But, Swithin, don't you see my new trouble? If I go to Welland House to-night, and find my brother just arrived there, and he sees this cut on my
face, which I suppose you described to him--' 'I did.' 'He will know I was the lady with you!' 'Whom he called my wife. I wonder why we look husband and wife already!' 'Then what am I to do? For the ensuing three or four days I bear in my
face a clue to his discovery of our secret.' 'Then you must not be seen. We must stay at an inn here.' 'O no!' she said timidly. 'It is too near home to be quite safe. We
might not be known; but _if_ we were!' 'We can't go back to Bath now. I'll tell you, dear Viviette, what we must do. We'll go on to Warborne in separate carriages; we'll meet
outside the station; thence we'll walk to the column in the dark, and
I'll keep you a captive in the cabin till the scar has disappeared.' As there was nothing which better recommended itself this course was
decided on; and after taking from her trunk the articles that might be
required for an incarceration of two or three days they left the said
trunk at the cloak-room, and went on by the last train, which reached
Warborne about ten o'clock.
It was only necessary for Lady Constantine to cover her face with the
thick veil that she had provided for this escapade, to walk out of the
station without fear of recognition. St. Cleeve came forth from another
compartment, and they did not rejoin each other till they had reached a
shadowy bend in the old turnpike road, beyond the irradiation of the
Warborne lamplight.
The walk to Welland was long. It was the walk which Swithin had taken in
the rain when he had learnt the fatal forestalment of his stellar
discovery; but now he was moved by a less desperate mood, and blamed
neither God nor man. They were not pressed for time, and passed along
the silent, lonely way with that sense rather of predestination than of
choice in their proceedings which the presence of night sometimes
imparts. Reaching the park gate, they found it open, and from this they
inferred that her brother Louis had arrived.