BRANCHES, Saturday afternoon, November 5th.
This morning I woke with a headache, to see the rain beating against my windows, and mist and fog--a fitting day for the 5th of November. I would not go down to breakfast. Véronique brought me mine to my sitting-room fire, and, with Spartan determination, I packed steadily all the morning.
About twelve a note came up from Lord Robert. I put it in.
DEAR MISS TRAVERS,-Why are you hiding? Was I a bore last night? Do forgive me and come down. Has Christopher locked you in your room? I will murder the brute if he has!
Yours very sincerely, ROBERT VAVASOUR.
"Can't; I am packing," I scribbled in pencil on the envelope, and gave it back to Charles, who was waiting in the hall for the answer. Two minutes after, Lord Robert walked into the room, the door of which the footman had left open.
"I have come to help you," he said, in that voice of his that sounds so sure of a welcome you can't snub him. "But where are you going?"
"I don't know," I said, a little forlornly, and then bent down and vigorously collected photographs.
"Oh, but you can't go to London by yourself!" he said, aghast. "Look here, I will come up with you, and take you to my aunt, Lady Merrenden. She is such a dear, and I am sure when I have told her all about you she will be delighted to take care of you for some days until you can hunt round."
He looked such a boy, and his face was so kind, I was touched.
"Oh no, Lord Robert! I cannot do that, but I thank you. I don't want to be under an obligation to any one," I said, firmly. "Mr. Carruthers suggests a way out of the difficulty--that I should marry him, and stay here. I don't think he means it, really, but he pretends he does."
He sat down on the edge of a table already laden with books, most of which overbalanced and fell crash on the floor.
"So Christopher wants you to marry him--the old fox?" he said, apparently oblivious of the wreck of literature he had caused. "But you won't do that, will you? And yet I have no business to say that. He is a dam good friend, Christopher."
"I am sure you ought not to swear so often, Lord Robert; it shocks me, brought up as I have been," I said, with the air of a little angel.