It seemed well-nigh impossible, in the small space of country which had probably been traversed by all parties, that they could lose each other for more than a few hours. To make the situation more clear to those who have never had the misfortune to suffer from the intricacies of English railway travel, the following diagram is appended. The triangle is isosceles, the sides being thirty-five miles long, the base twenty.
He reviewed his own adventures of yesterday afternoon. He had acted on what seemed to be the only sensible and reasonable plan to pursue; namely, to leave the train at its first stop, and return as soon as possible to the point of divergence. It seemed fair to assume that Mr. Scarsdale and Mrs. Allingford had done the same thing, and, such being the case, it was easy to imagine what their course of action had been. A glance at the time-table told him that the first point at which they could leave their division of the train had been Southampton; from which place they could, almost immediately, catch an express back to the junction they had left, arriving there shortly after seven on the past evening.
His own course and that of Mrs. Scarsdale seemed clear; it was simply a return to Basingstoke immediately after breakfast, and rejoin their friends, who had been spending the night at that place.
It was possible that they had lost the returning express and remained in Southampton; but if they acted in a rational manner, they must eventually return to the junction. But supposing Mrs. Allingford and Mr. Scarsdale had not done the obvious thing; supposing that chance had intervened and upset their plans, as in his own case? He suddenly found himself face to face with the startling fact that not only were he and Mrs. Scarsdale not at Salisbury or Basingstoke, but that they were at present at the one place where his wife and Mrs. Scarsdale's husband would never think of looking for them--Melton Court.
Allingford jammed his hat hard on the back of his head, and set off at a brisk pace to Salisbury and the nearest telegraph station; arriving at his destination shortly before seven, to find that he had a good half-hour to wait before the operators arrived. The office was opened at last, however, and he lost no time in telegraphing to Basingstoke for information, and in a little while received an answer from the station-master at that point which cheered him up considerably, though it was not quite as explicit as he could have wished. It read as follows: