At that moment someone entered the room. He looked up with a smile, thinking it was the first guest. It was the hall-porter, who held out a salver, saying:
He took the letter, saw it was Marion's handwriting, and told the man to go.
He broke the envelope and read over the letter slowly twice. When he had considered awhile he went to a table where there were writing materials, and addressed a cover:
"I was the first in, and had been here some time, when I got a note by the last post. Must run away at once, but hope to be back in an hour. Don't wait for me. I am awfully sorry. Show all the fellows this, and tell them, as they will guess, that nothing but matter of the gravest moment could take me away under the circumstances.
He drove straight to Tenby Terrace. He ran up the steps, and, when Anne opened the door, asked impetuously:
"Is May in?" He forgot to say "Miss Durrant."
"Oh, a letter has just come saying she will not be back, and we don't know where she is gone to, sir."
Anne had forgotten to call him even "my lord."
That night the members of the new Anerly Club saw nothing of its founder.
When Marion found herself out of the house for the second time on that day, with the letter in her hand addressed to her aunt, she had no idea of what direction she took. It was only a little after five o'clock, and the air was fall of pleasant sunshine. All around her were happy-looking people moving blithely along, each to some known point or other. She was going nowhere; she was simply going away. All places were alike to her, so long as there was no chance of meeting him there. She, whose whole nature yearned to be at his side, was flying from him who, she knew, wished her to remain for him, with him. What was all the world to one without love? How could it be that anything in the world could come between hearts that loved?
She turned east and walked on. She was conscious she knew well the streets through which she passed, but the names of them did not occur to her. After a while she found herself on the Thames Embankment. It was full tide, and the river looked its best. It was the fresh young summer of the year, when all London looks brightest; and no part of London, not even the parks, feels the summer so much as the Embankment; for there is not only the fresh green of the time on the trees of the Embankment and the gardens, but the bright silver of the river of all time sparkling back to the wide expanse of sky. Every wholesome man and woman and child, and beast and bird and insect, that could, came out to pay homage to the sun; all noisome things, human or beneath man in the scheme of Nature, now sought concealment. It made old people young and young people gay, to be abroad.